


Icarus

by gothicgrrl1976



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Adult Peter Parker, Canonical Character Death, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff and Angst, Implied Relationships, M/M, Men Crying, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Sad, Talking, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-16
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2020-03-06 13:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 16
Words: 55,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18851809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gothicgrrl1976/pseuds/gothicgrrl1976
Summary: Life goes on. And not in the ways that you might expect.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will be long; I have no idea of the chapter count yet, but this is just the very beginning. Let me know if you like! Also, I think this may be the first Happy Hogan/Peter Parker fic, so yeah, weird relationship, but I think I'll make it work.

My dad was not a great dad. He had old-fashioned ideas about how to raise a kid, how to raise a man. It involved a lot of the back of his hand, and not a lot of talking. My mom mostly raised me and my dad was mostly gone. On business, he’d say, but I think it really just that he didn’t like being around us. Having to be concerned with women and children was probably not his thing. He was a cigar and scotch kind of guy, not play catch in the backyard kind of guy.

One day though, when I was maybe nine? Eight? Somewhere along there, he was home for a weekend, and he was heading out for the racetrack. I wanted to come along, but it wasn’t for kids. He must have felt a little sorry for me. Maybe I pouted or my eyes showed how I felt, but he sighed, impatiently, and went into his study. He looked around at his bookshelf, while I tucked my head into the room. I wasn’t allowed in there, but I did want to see what he doing.

He pulled a blue book off the shelf. He walked over and handed it to me. “Here. You might like this, Harry.”

I looked at it. It was a book of Greek myths. We’d read a couple of the myths in school. They hadn’t really been my thing. “I dunno, Dad.”

He knelt down, which is not something he did often. This is one of my best memories of him, actually. He wasn’t being a great dad, but he did try, a little, in this moment. “Give it a try. I read this when I was young. We can maybe talk about it when you’re done.”

He left for the racetrack then, and I did start to read it. Maybe if I had something that he liked to talk to him about, he’d talk to me more. I even memorized some of the shorter ones, not the words, I’m not big on words, more on actions, and that was true even when I was eight. But I learned some of the stories. So I learned the one about the guy pushing the rock up the hill, over and over. And the one about the girl and the box and hope. 

I got that the stories were trying to teach me something. They weren’t being too subtle about it actually. They were really trying to pound it in. Especially the one about Icarus. Like yeah, don’t fly too close to the sun, or you’re going to get burnt. No shit.

Tony Stark built that damn suit and flew too close to the sun. He got burnt. Lesson learned.

My dad and I never talked about the book. He got busy and I never asked.

Well, I wasn’t going to fail Morgan like my dad failed me. The memorial service had been long and she was small. When it was over, Ms. Potts was talking to people she hadn’t seen in awhile, and Morgan was just sitting on the porch, talking to one of her stuffed animals. She didn’t look sad, because she was too little to understand, I think. But I felt sad for her and for her dad and for Ms. Potts and for everyone here today. Everyone was bruised, a little or a lot, but Morgan was little and someone should talk to her. They were all in groups, talking to themselves.

I sat down by her and after a little small talk with the stuffed animal, I asked what she wanted today, what would make her feel better.

“How you doing, Squirt?”

She looked at me. “Good.”

“You good?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Talking to her made me realize how my dad must have felt most of the time. But oh, her dark hair and her dark eyes. She looked so much like Boss. “Okay. You hungry?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“What do you want?”

“Cheeseburgers.”

And my heart broke a little. Cheeseburgers are what Boss asked for, first thing, once he got back from Afghanistan. This little girl was his, through and through. “You know, your dad liked cheeseburgers.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“I’m going to get you all the cheeseburgers you want.”

“Okay.”

I smiled at Morgan a little, then patted her on the leg. “C’mon kiddo. Let’s see if we can rustle you up some food.” I stood up, and she stood up with me, and she picked up her bear, and we made our way through the house to the kitchen. I held her hand most of the way. It felt so small in mine.

Ms. Potts had hired caterers for after the memorial. Smart woman. It was a long, difficult day for her, so no need to cook. Half the people here would eat a normal person out of house and home anyway. Peter Parker, that kid, he could shove down food like no one’s business. Part being a teenager, part being a mutant. All of it meant that when he was over, visiting Boss, that the housekeepers had to lay in extra food. I spotted him in the corner, talking to his aunt and Harley Keener. I waved at him to be polite since I had caught his eye, while moving Morgan along, and he looked around to see who I was waving to. It took him a minute, and then he figured out that I must have been waving at him. He grinned a little shyly and then waved back.

I shook my head and got Morgan to the kitchen. I had to bark at a couple of the cater-waiters, but I got Morgan settled at the corner of the island closest to the stove. I looked through the refrigerator and found some hamburger and some cheese. It was a little fancier cheese than what think Morgan was looking for, but Ms. Potts wasn’t going to let American cheese sully the other foods in the fridge. I don’t think four year-olds are super-picky about the kind of cheese they ate anyway.

I chattered at her. She’d smile at me occasionally, but she was really focused on watching the cater-waiters bump into each other. Who could really blame her? They didn’t know their asses from their elbows. I wanted to yell at them, but ehh, it was a shitty enough day to skip it. I finished cooking and handed her a cheeseburger. “Here you go, Ms. Morgan.”

She took a small bite, but then her tummy must have taken over, because she started to wolf it down. She began to tell me about her favorite tv show, and her teacher in pre-school said this, and what Dum-e had done once, and she’d really like a puppy but Mom said no, and did I like Spider-man? She liked Spider-man, but Dad never let her have a Spider-man poster and she didn’t know why.

I finally tuned in enough to her to hear what she was actually saying. “Morgan-cat. Spider-man is actually here, in this house. Wanna go meet him?”

Her eyes got as big as saucers. “No! No, silly. Dad said Spider-man went to heaven.”

I sighed. “Well, he’s back among the living now, girlie-girl, and in the living room. C’mon, you wanna see if him and his aunt want cheeseburgers too?”

She got off her chair, stood up straight and shrieked, “He has an AUNT. Spider-man has an aunt!”

I grinned at her. “Yep. You have aunts, Spider-man has an aunt, and your dad liked Spider-man’s aunt too. You wanna help me make up plates for them?”  
Morgan looked like she was about to lose her mind. She got up close to me and pulled my sleeve, anxiously. “What if he doesn’t like cheeseburgers, Uncle Happy?”

I bent down a little, so I could look into her eyes. “He’s a teenager, Morgan, and teenagers will eat anything, trust me. Plus, you and me, we make some mean cheeseburgers, right? Let’s make some for him, and you can meet him.”

She tugged again a little on the old sleeve, “What if he doesn’t like me?”

I am not a toucher. People who want to be touched, they should go talk to their spouse, or a massage therapist, or a lady on the street, and not come looking to me, but she looked so sad. I reached over, and petted her hair and then hugged her a little. I didn’t want to scare her or anything. “Morgan, sweetheart. Your dad loved Spider-man, and Spider-man loved him. Spider-man will love you too. Let’s get him some food, ok. You think Spider-man likes chips? I think he does.” 

I pointed at a particularly young cater-waiter. “Go ask that guy for a bag of chips, ok, Morgan?” I turned a little away from her, so that she couldn’t see that I was upset. Boss and Spider-man, the kid, I was pretty sure they had had something before the Snap. I didn’t know what, and I didn’t like to think that Boss would hurt Ms. Potts like that. Or honestly, that he’d touch a kid like that, but… all the signs had been there.

And I didn’t want to blame the kid, because he was a kid, but he had some hold over Boss, I didn’t know what. Seriously, why would a billionaire hand out his private number to a teenager and let that teen call him day or night? Or would assign me, the Asset Manager of Stark Industries, which is a global company, to keep an eye on a kid in Queens? Someone thinking with his dick would do that. Goddamn Tony, sometimes you’d make things so hard for yourself and everyone around you.

Hell, Jeff Bezos may send dickpics, but at least the lady in question was over the age of consent. I really, really hoped that whatever dickpic that Peter had, he’d have the good grace not to embarrass Ms. Potts or Morgan with making them public sometime for the money.

Morgan appeared at my elbow. “I didn’t know what kind of chips he would like, so I asked for ALL THE CHIPS.” She was holding a basket with one of every flavor up-high. 

I snorted. “You sure did! You do have all the chips, little lady. Let me get these burgers on some buns, and we’ll go out and meet Spider-man, ok?” I finagled my spatula around and plated the hamburgers. I had a feeling I was using the plates that only the family used, but I couldn’t get to the recyclable plates. The waiters were hovering, like birds. Dumb, stupid birds. I bared my teeth at them and picked up the plates. “Let’s go, Morgan! On to see Spider-man!”

I pushed through the kitchen door towards the living room, where everyone was gathered. I looked around for Parker and finally spotted him over in the corner, nervously perched on a loveseat that I think had been drug up from somewhere else for extra seating. It didn’t fit in the room at all. His aunt was over talking Clint’s wife, so Parker was sitting by himself.

I started walking us over to him. Morgan piped up, “I don’t see him! Uncle Happy, I don’t see him! Did he leave?”

I looked down at her, confused. “Morgan, honey, he’s right over there,” and pointed at Parker.

“I don’t see him!”

I stared at her for a minute before it clicked. “Ohhh. Morgan, no one’s in their costumes right now. See?” I pointed over at Mr. Rogers. “You know what Captain America looks like, right? And you know who Mr. Rogers is, right? See, he’s just not wearing his costume, but he’s Captain America.”

A little light bulb seemed to turn on in her head. “So you know what he looks like WITHOUT HIS COSTUME???”

Yeah, and your dad most likely did too. I choked that thought down fast, in the same place that I stuck the memory of the time I walked in on my parents when I was twelve. I nodded my head at Morgan. “Yep, sure do. His name’s Peter Parker. You call him Mr. Parker, ok?”

“Mr. Hulk still looks green, Uncle Happy,” she said doubtfully.

“Yeah, Mr. Hulk has made some questionable life choices recently, Morgan. I swear to you though, this is Spider-man.” I turned to Parker. “Wave ‘hi’, Spider-man.”

We had arrived over to the corner. Peter scrambled out of his seat when he saw us. “Mr. Hogan -- I didn’t see -- I didn’t see you coming.”

“Yeah, I’m stealthy like that, Parker.” I shoved the plate at him and he fumbled to get it. “Ms. Morgan Stark here would like to meet Spider-man. Morgan, in case no one got around to explaining it, is Mr. Stark’s and Ms. Pott’s daughter. She is four.” I looked at him, and did that hand motion that meant your eyes to my eyes. “And she would like to meet Spider-man.”

His eyes widened as big as Morgan’s eyes were. She was busy staring at him. It took a second for the wheels to spin in his head - I never thought he was a quick a thinker as Boss did - but he did the right thing, bless him. He shoved the plate right back to me and knelt down in front of her. I kinda felt sorry for the knees of his suit, but it looked like his aunt had gotten it at JcPenney’s so… it wasn’t like he was ruining anything good.

He gently took the basket of chips from her and put it on the seat behind him. He held out his hand, and when she was so starstruck that she couldn’t move he lightly grabbed hers and shook it softly. “Morgan, I am so glad to meet you. Everyone has told me all about you and how cool you are. And you brought me chips!” He looked back at the sofa. “So many chips! So, I’m Spider-man. And how are you?”

She continued to stare at him in wonder, speechlessly. I patted her back, to remind her that I was here, “She wasn’t sure what kind of chips you liked.”

Parker leaned in a little closer and whispered, “Can I tell you a secret, Morgan? I really like every kind of potato chip. I’m going to eat ALL of the chips that you brought me.”

It took her a second, but then she giggled and tried to bury her face in my pants leg. Morgan’s mom came by to check on her. Her eyes were a little glossy, but she looked ok otherwise. I smiled at her. Ms. Potts leaned down to Morgan too. “Morgan! You’re getting to meet Spider-man! How lucky you are!”

“Mommy, he said he’s going to eat all of the chips!”

Ms. Potts winked at Parker. “He does eat a LOT, Morgan. He might.”

Morgan giggled again and spoke to Parker. “I like it when you fly.”

“I like flying too! But it’s not really flying. I have webs, like a spider does? And I use the webs to swing myself around.” He kept his eyes straight on Morgan when he was talking to her. I’d noticed that a lot of the Avengers got sad around her now and would avoid her or not look at her when they talked to her. But Parker talked to her.

He had obviously blown her mind too. “You have webs?”

He nodded, really big. “I sure do.” 

He turned to Ms. Potts. “Ma’am, I can take her outside and swing from a tree, maybe holding her? I won’t hurt her, I promise. I’ll be careful. Is that ok?”

Ms. Potts patted him on the shoulder, and I could see her start to tear up a little. “Of course, Peter. You’d make her day.”

Peter turned back to Morgan. “So Morgan, you want to go watch me shoot some webs?”

I practically choked on my own spit. He stared at me and then blushed, bright red. I just looked at him.

He coughed a little and then looked back at Morgan. “And maybe, if you’re not scared, we can swing a little on a tree together, ok?”

She looked like she had been handed the moon and the stars and all the cheeseburgers she could eat. “YES!!!” She jumped up and down, and you could tell it was just because she was so excited that she couldn’t hold all of the joy in her. Her body was just too little, I guess.

He laughed and stood up. Gracefully. I never could have stood up like that after being on my knees that long. “Let’s go then.” She started to skip out to the door and he hurried after her.

I stood up to follow them, putting the plate on an end-table. “I made this cheeseburger specially for you too, Parker, you and your Aunt, and now after you play in the trees, you’re going to have to wash your hands.”

He glanced back at me. “I promise I’ll eat the cheeseburger, Mr. Hogan, but I have a lot of chips to eat first.” 

Morgan broke out in laughter. “I got you ALL the chips.”

“Yep, you sure did,” he replied. We had reached the yard, and now Parker was looking up at the trees. 

“What?” I asked.

“You think these trees will both of our weights?” Morgan was spinning around in excitement. Spinning and falling to make herself dizzy.

“Parker, you weigh like a buck ten and Morgan’s maybe 35 pounds, dripping wet. I think the trees are going to hold you.”

“You sure? I don’t want to hurt her.”

I stuck my hands in my pants pocket and looked up at trees with him. “Her dad’s dead because none of the rest of you could save the world. You could fall from the highest branch, and she’ll still be better off, you know?”

He was silent for a long moment. I finally looked at his face when the quiet had run on for more than enough time. His eyes were glistening now too. Goddamnit. I never was good with words.

I cleared my throat. “Look, I think the trees are safe enough. You can always test it first without her. She’d like to see you swing. If you fall, you can catch yourself and then you know not to use that tree, ok?” My voice sounded gruffer than I thought it would. I cleared my throat again.

He looked at me, his lips thinned and his eyes glassy. He took a couple of deep breaths and then called to Morgan. “Look Morgan, you want to see something kind of weird?”

She stopped spinning. “Like what?”

“So, I’m kind of like a spider. Spiders have something called spinnerets, that spin the web out. I have little ones in my wrist. Wanna come see?”

I looked at him, grossed out. “You have holes in your wrist, Parker? I thought your suit did that.”

 

He ignored me and focused on the girl. He crouched down, again gracefully, and held out his wrists to her. She reached out her hands and held his and pulled his arms closer to her so that she could see. Bastard didn’t even fall down when she threw off his balance.

“There’s holes in your wrist!” I looked down at him and saw the holes. I had to choke down my gag reflex.

“Yep! That’s where the web comes out. Wanna see?”

“Yes!”

He smiled at her. “Ok, you have to hand me one of my hands back, ok?”

She let go of both of them and stood watching him. He stood up and threw his arm like he was throwing a baseball. Morgan and I could see the web spin out.

“Cooooooolllll!!!” She yelled at the top of her lungs.

He laughed. “Yeah, it is. Hang on, I’m going to throw a web to that branch over there,” he pointed. “I’ll swing to see if it can hold me, and if it can, if you’re really brave, we can swing together. I’ll go slow, ok?”

He tossed a web up to the branch and jumped up and swung. Morgan clapped and clapped and I hadn’t seen her so happy since Boss died. Parker might be a freak, but at least he was making the girl happy.

I yelled up at him. “See, told you it would hold.”

He jumped to a branch in a different tree. He sort of rocked back and forth, testing the branch. “Yeah, I think it will.” He dropped down suddenly.

“Morgan, you want to try? I’ll hold you, but you have to hold me super-tight, ok? That way we stay together.”

She sighed. “I don’t have any web, like you.”

He reached over and tousled her hair. “That’s ok! I have enough web for both of us. You just have to hold on to me, ok?” He reached down and scooped her up as if she weighed the same as a kitten.

He threw the web from his other hand and jumped up again. I was afraid he’d go too fast for her - he was a teenager and reckless. Boss had known that about him, but I saw that he was moving very slowly, swinging just enough to make Morgan squeal in happy fright, but so easily that I wasn’t scared for her. These weren’t the swings he normally did. They were at the speed of a kid going real slow on a swing set.

Ms. Potts and Peter’s aunt stepped out into the yard. They looked up at the trees, watching, both with small smiles on their faces. “She looks like she’s very happy doesn’t she, Happy?”

“Yeah, Ms. Potts. He’s making her week.” 

May spoke up, “I’m happy to see him out and about too. It’s been hard for him since he came back. All the changes.”

Ms. Potts just nodded and patted May’s arm. We all watched a teenager in a cheap suit and a four year old move from tree to tree for a little bit. The ladies eventually moved back inside to go talk to other people. I stayed out, watching for Morgan.

After about 10 minutes, he dropped himself and her back down. “Man, Morgan, am I tired! You’re a really good at this.”

She glowed up at him. He spoke again, “I think I need a bag of chips, can you go pick me out one?”

“Sure!” She ran back to the patio door, and Mr. Rogers spotted her and opened it up for her, waving a little at us.

Parker turned to me. “See, I kept her safe, Mr. Hogan. Just like I couldn’t do for her dad.” His whole body was stiff, not loose like it had been up in the trees.

I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Nothing I wanted to say to him anyway.

He stared at me for a couple of second and then shook his head, moving to the patio too.

I looked him walk back inside. 

It was later that night that I texted him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the for the delay. Summer colds are the worst. Two chapters now though!

I could tell he was pissed at me and maybe he had reasons to be, I don’t know. Like I said, I’m good with actions not words. Ms. Potts had put us all up in a hotel for the night after the memorial service. I lived in New York, Parker lived in New York, and the others were all coming from other places too, and we didn’t have homes to drive back to, easily. Especially if you were from Wakanda, I guess. So we were all in the same hotel. I’d seen Mr. Rogers at the check-in desk as I brought in my garment bag, actually.

I thought a little bit about bringing him stuff from the vending machine in a kind of apology, but even for me, that seemed kind of half-assed.

Besides, I didn’t really want to have to explain to his aunt why I was handing him handfuls of candy bars. 

So I took the coward’s way out:

_Parker, did you eat all the chips?_

For a teenager, he didn’t exactly rush to answer my text. In fact, I checked up on some work email while I waited. Watched about a half hour of a boxing match on ESPN. Drank a beer and watched a crappy movie on HBO. For all I knew, he could have crashed right after he got back to the room. 

Three hours later:

_Mr. Hogan, u really don’t have to check up on me. It’s not yr job anymore._

The thing was, I pretty damn sure it still was. The will reading hadn’t happened yet. That particular joy was tomorrow morning, but I knew that Tony had been sure that the time travel shit was going to work. Once he got an idea in his head, he was always sure it was going to work, and for someone who was so erratic sometimes, he planned for the things that mattered to him.

As I saw it, it was going to shake down like this:

Tony had thought the time travel thing was going to work. So since it was going to work, Parker was going to be back after the Snap. Tony would want to make sure Parker was taken care of, just like Morgan and Ms. Potts were. They were already in his will, I’m sure, but I know Tony met with lawyers to revise the will right before they decided to do their plan. Tony being Tony wouldn’t like, just leave Parker some money, because that wouldn’t be hands-on enough for him.

Tony would have wanted to see that Parker went to school with the money, went to graduate school, went to the right parties to get to the right internships, ate his green vegetables, made sure that his life was as comfortable as Tony would have tried to make it be, if he was still here to watch Parker himself.

And if Tony couldn’t be here to watch himself, well, he was going to have people do it for him. I imagine Aunt May was going to be co-executor of a trust for Parker, probably with the help of a very expensive lawyer. I also thought I could solidly plan on being Parker’s watcher for the next ten years or so. I didn’t see the strings yet, but I could feel them.

_Parker, sorry, but I’m pretty sure after the will is read tomorrow, I’m still going to be around._

I waited another 10 minutes. Brushed my teeth. Changed into my pajamas. Waited some more.

_Mr. Stark left me money??_

I startled myself with my own laughter.

_I don’t know that for sure, but yeah, I’d say so. I’d also say that I’m still going to be in your life for awhile._

The next response came quicker.

_He didn’t have to do that._

I texted back: _Parker, he had money like you and I have socks. You shouldn’t worry about that._

He texted: ….. _So what do I do?_

It was midnight, I was tired. It was going to be a long day tomorrow too. Not for him, he was probably flying home. But I was going to be here, for at least the next couple of weeks. Cleaning up things with Ms. Potts. The Board of Stark Industries was flying in the day after tomorrow, and staying in the same hotel that I was staying in now, and lots of plans were going to be made, and lots of meetings were going to be held, and I was going to be in almost all of them, as the Asset Manager.

I started out as Boss’s driver. The next month or so, I knew, would have me wishing that I had stayed in the position. It would let me go home, go drive for someone else. Maybe open up a boxing gym with my brother. Not try to watch the board figure out how to make the company keep going when there wasn’t a Stark left to be in charge of Stark Industries. 

It was time to get to bed.

_I dunno, Paker. I’m just guessing how things are going to go._

_I’ll be back in New York next month. I’ll take you out to lunch._

_I’m sure the lawyers will talk to you and your aunt too, you know._

_It’s time for bed. Seriously, we’ll have lunch in the next month._

He responded: _K. text me._

And that was it for six weeks. The meetings were exactly as long, if not longer, than I had thought they would be. I flew out to Japan for a couple of weeks. I didn’t enjoy either the food or the weather. Ms. Potts had dark circles under her eyes, and I think she was only eating cereal bars and fruit from the fruit baskets on every conference table.

Me? I wasn’t sleeping well. I wasn’t eating well, and I was drinking too much. My weight always crept up when I didn’t spend enough time exercising. Well, I wasn’t spending enough time exercising, and my whole body felt miserable and I didn’t like the way I looked in any of my suits. I was tired of email and scans and signing things and telling other people not to sign other things and having to be attached to my StarkPhone 24/7, putting out fucking fires at 2am.

It’s why I growled when the damn thing vibrated during meeting number eight of the day. The intern pulling the sad leftovers from lunch to put the exact same, but fresh!, meal out for dinner jumped behind me. I ignored him.

It was actually a text from Parker. _Do you read Game of Thrones?_

What? He had to be texting someone else. _U texted Happy Hogan._

He texted back: _??? I know._

Who had time for this? _Parker, I’m at work. What do u need?_

_It's 10pm, Mr. Hogan._

I looked at my watch, it sure was. I motioned the intern over for more coffee. This meeting was going to be going past 2-3 am. Parker, one day, u 2 will go to work. And it will both suck and blow. What do you want?

_Not to work at a job as late as you, Mr. Hogan. When can u do lunch?_

I pulled up my calendar on my phone. I was going to back to the City this weekend, mostly to wish a fond farewell to the dead houseplants in my apartment and to pick up some fresh underwear. I could slot him in for an hour. Get it over with.

_Saturday, 2pm. Pick a restaurant._

I could see the dot bubbles.

_Not now, I don’t care. Text me the address on Saturday morning, I’ll be there._

_Cool. I’ll text u, Mr. Hogan._

Great. Give me something to look forward to. I coughed. All this coffee was giving me heartburn…


	3. Chapter 3

Saturday dawned bright and early for me, when I woke up late for lunch. Parker had texted me like he said he was going to, at 9:30am, it looked like, but now my phone’s alarm was going off at 1pm. And of course, he had picked a place close to his house, not to mine. Shit.

I had long ago, when I was still just Tony’s driver, settled into my work uniform of black suit, white shirt, and dark tie. He was also so flashy that it allowed me to settle back into the woodwork. I didn’t have to talk to anybody, which was a definite plus. But mostly it was to watch for danger around Boss. With me in the woodwork, I could see the activity around him better. Keep him **safer**. No one could keep him safe.

When he brought home the one-night stands or the week-long stands, the uniform worked then too. I was just hired help. No need to worry about me as you loll about in your underwear, Ma’am or Sir. I’m just here to drive you and the man who is way more interesting than you will ever be around.

However, now it was a) too late to get dressed and be at his restaurant in time, b) Tony was dead so Parker was, marginally, more interesting than him now, and c) I didn’t suppose that he’d be completely shocked if I showed up in a t-shirt and jeans. I scrounged around in my t-shirt drawer for something that would still fit and smelt reasonably fresh. I found one that met both of those conditions but was wrinkled. Parker would have to deal. 

I hurried up and did the rest of what I needed to do to get ready and barely made it to the restaurant by 2, but I made it on time dammit.

He was sitting in a corner booth at the deli, watching me. His eyebrows raised at little at me as I sat down. “I didn’t know you owned jeans, Mr. Hogan.”

“I am a man of surprises, Parker.” 

He nodded at me. “You really don’t have to call me Parker all the time. My name is Peter.”

I looked at him. He looked at me. I continued to look at him. “I’ll still call you Parker, Parker.”

“So can I call you Happy then?”

I grabbed a roll out of the basket in front of him. “Nope. What’s good here?”

He surprised me by laughing. “You haven’t really changed. That’s nice. Reassuring, you know?”

I batted his hand away from the butter dish, since he was just turning it around and around, nervously. I got one of those little butter tubs out. “Seriously, what’s good here? I’m hungry.”

“Umm, I always get a hamburger, but Aunt May likes the Reuben, and Ned, I think he likes the chicken salad. He did anyway.” He slid a menu at me.

I raised an eyebrow, “Did Ned get food poisoning from the chicken salad? Is that why you’re not sure?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, Mr. Hogan. I’ve been gone for five years, more or less. For all I know, chickens have gone extinct, and Ned is now eating buffalo salad. Dude, I’ve seen Ned since I got back, but we didn’t catch each other up on the chicken salad, you know? I’m sure it’s fine.”

“Ned didn’t go in the Snap? Chickens are fine, by the way.”

“Good to know and nope. No one really, in my friends did Snap-out, just me. MJ, my other friend, she’s graduating from college next year. Ned, he apparently took a ‘gap year’,” Parker flashed quote fingers at me, “so he’s not quite on track to graduating. Me though, I get to look forward to senior prom this Spring!” His voice was bitter.

The waiter came by and we ordered quickly. I did not order the chicken salad. “I thought they legally jumped everyone ahead by five years. So you’re what, 22 now? Twenty-three?”

“Mr. Hogan,” he groaned and damned if he didn’t sound just like one of my nephews bitching and moaning about my brother Vince being unfair, “Yeah, technically, I’m 22. I can vote and if I didn’t live in New York City, I could drive. I can drink legally, even though I don’t really like the taste of beer -”

“You’re probably drinking cheap shit. Drink better beer, Parker,”  
He continued on, ignoring me, “So yeah, I can do all of the adult things. But in my head, I haven’t graduated high school yet. And Aunt May says that I could probably test out and go to college next year -”

“You probably could. I’m sure we could get that arranged for you.”

“Stop interrupting me, Mr. Hogan.” He leaned forward and stared at me. “I’m. not. Ready. I don’t feel ready. I’m not ready to leave and go live in a dorm, I’m not ready.”

Well then. I had hoped that I would just be handing him the letter from Mr. Stark, maybe enjoying a nice Reuben, and chatting with someone who wasn’t on Stark Industry’s payroll. I mean, Parker, but it wasn’t like Parker was going to want me to sign something or not sign something, so it would have been a break. Nice. 

Apparently, we were going to having a heart-to-heart though. Great. Fabulous. I mentally added another hour to this meal. I could probably still catch a cab to the airport to fly out by 5pm. Fortunately, I was getting use of one of the company’s jets, so they’d wait a little bit.

“So don’t test out of high school, Parker. Stay in for another year. Live your life the way you were supposed to. None of us,” meaning the people who hadn’t Snapped out, “are really expecting everyone who came back to be ready to plop back into life. It’s fine.”

I could see a sheen of tears in his eyes. If I didn’t think it would have made him cry full out I would have banged my head on the table. “Is your Aunt May doing ok with you? Is she ok with you taking a little time?”

“It’s not that. She’s fine.”

“That’s good.” I chewed more of my roll. Waited. It took him a couple of minutes but he got there.

“Did you read Game of Thrones?”

I looked at him. “Nope. Watched the TV show for awhile, but even I got bored of the naked women. Why?”

“How did it end?”

“The books? Never came out. The author died, like actually died, not Snapped Out. I don’t remember the end of the TV show. Sorry. Is this what you’re upset about? You missed the end of a TV show? You can probably find a copy somewhere.”

He glared at me. “Noooo. But on the plane ride home from Mr. Stark’s funeral, I thought about it. There was a character named Ned Stark in it, and the name popped in my head on the plane. I was probably about half-asleep.”

I made a keep-it-moving motion with my hand. “Ok?”

“Anyway, you read the first book, and you think Ned Stark is going to be the main character, he’s going to win and take back the kingdom. It’s how it’s meant to go.”

“Yep.” I had no idea what he was talking about.

He was tapping his fingers impatiently and then our food came. I took a bite of my reuben. It was ok, not great. I remembered that May wasn’t a really good cook. Probably explained why she liked this. 

He leaned toward me again. “I thought Mr. Stark would be a main character. But he isn’t, is he, Mr. Hogan?

I stopped chewing. We were going to go there. I stared at Parker for a long time then remembered that I should finish chewing. I finally got the food down. I reminded myself that Parker was, first and foremost, a kid. A kid who was having a hard time understanding what was going on, what had gone on. A kid who didn’t deserve whatever Tony had done to him. He just didn’t.

“Parker, you left and came back. And that sucks. I get it. No one was ready for what happened.” I gestured outside the window. The world had fallen apart, a bit, when everyone was gone, and trash pickup still didn’t seem to be anyone’s main priority. It looked like we lived in a garbage pile. We did live in a garbage pile. 

“And then Tony left and won’t come back. I get it. But he was the main character in his life, and in Ms. Potts’ life, and I’ve spent the last God knows how long helping to keep his company going. He was the main character, and I do mean character, of his company’s life, at least since he took over in his twenties. He lived his life and it was a good one.

I took a sip of my drink, mostly to buy myself seconds to think. “It’s ok, you know. That he was in the beginning of your story, and then he exited, whaddya they say, stage left?”

“Followed by a bear?”

I shook my head, “Parker, like half the time, I swear to God, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“It’s a stage direction that Shakespeare gave. He told the actor, to Exit, followed by a bear.”

“There’s no bears in this story. But Tony’s death wasn’t, shall we say, unexpected.”

He jerked upright and then glared at me. “HE DIED. IN BATTLE.”

I glared right back. “Yeah, and how else did you think he was going to go? He might have had a heart attack, I’ll give you that. But he’d stopped the drugs and the drink, so it wasn’t going to be a cocaine heart attack. Parker, you’re not the only one who can quote shit. Tony was never going quietly into that good night. He was always going to die this way. One battle or another.”

I was raising my voice. I consciously took a deep breath and breathed a couple of minutes. Ms. Potts was having us do meditation before the meetings started everyday. I hated it. But I had to admit, here it was helping.

“Look, I know… you two had something.”

He had turned his head away, but his eyes were facing back at me. He was listening anyway.

“I don’t know what you two had in common, or how I got stuck watching you, or why he’d build you fancy suits, but I do know that you have to be hurting. I get it. I know that it might be hard that you feel like the world has stopped and the world goes on, not picking up its goddamn garbage.

“If it helps, and I don’t know that it will now, but it might later. He didn’t mean to leave anyone behind. At first, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to do this thing.” I put down my Reuben and rested my hand on his forearm. He could have pushed me away if he’d wanted to, but I thought he might need to feel a connection to something human with the next bit.

“He had his family, he had Morgan and Ms. Potts and it was what he had been working towards his whole life, having a family.” Which wasn’t with you, Parker, I’m sorry. And really, at this moment, I could see how that must have hurt. I squeezed his arm gently to try to take away some of the sting.

“But he still thought the risk was worth it. Even if changing the timeline somehow took away his family, he still thought it was worth it.”

I chuckled, with no real humor, and pulled my hand away. He was looking at me, with a tear running down his face. I gestured at his hamburger. “You really should eat. You don’t look like you’re eating enough. Your body needs food.”

He nodded and took a bite, but I could see he wasn’t really tasting it. “He thought he was immortal, you know. He never thought that would be the end.”

His voice was small. “But it was.”

I breathed through my nose. “For him, yeah, but his family will live on. Ms. Potts will make sure the company keeps going. And you and me, we’ll be together quite a while thanks to the Boss.”

“What do you mean?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> On vacation this week, I'm hoping for lots updates. Hope you are too :).

The lawyers have been in contact with you, right, Parker? You and your Aunt May? You know about the money?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Yes, I know about the money, Mr. Hogan. Aunt May hasn’t had her feet touch the ground for a month, but she still won’t quit her job.”

“She’s a good nurse, right? She should probably keep doing that. Give her something to do.”

“She keeps saying the money is for me anyway.” He took a sip of his drink.

I snorted. “The amount of money you and she got? I think you can probably share it and be just fine. Also, the fact that the will specifically said, and I quote, _‘These funds are to ensure that Mr. Peter Parker has the education that he deserves, that he has a good start in his life, and that I want to ensure his continued comfort while he establishes himself as the fine man he is and will continue to grow to be, as well as keep his hottie aunt in the style that she deserves’_ probably says it all about how Mr. Stark felt about your aunt sharing the money anyway, Parker.”

He quirked a grin at me. “My aunt was pretty pissed when she heard that was in the will.”

“Yeah, well, Ms. Potts wasn’t super-delighted about it either. If Mr. Stark had been alive, she woulda punched him in the arm.” I smiled back at him as he laughed. If his laughter had the slight tinge of sadness in it, well, that was ok.

I took a bite of my cole-slaw, which was actually pretty good. Better than the Rueben anyway. “Anyway, I’m glad the lawyers have been in touch. But he left a letter for you. I got one on the other side, so I can guess what yours said -”

“He left a letter?” His eyes had gone wide.

“Yeah, it’s part of the reason we’re having this lunch, Parker. The other reason is, well, it’s in the letter.” I picked up my jacket and started digging through, finding the envelope in an inner pocket. 

I handed it out for him, but when he froze, not seeming to be able to reach for it, I dropped it gently on the table in front of him. “Look, take some time to read it, ok, Parker?”

I stood up. “I’m not leaving, I’ll be back, I just gotta make a phone call to see if they can hold the jet for me for an extra hour. I’m going to go outside and make my call, and you can read the letter, and I’ll be back.” I patted him on the shoulder.

He turned his head to me. His eyes were glistening. “What did your letter say, Mr. Hogan?”

I shook my head at him. “After. Read the letter, and I’ll be back.” I patted his shoulder again and went outside.

The call didn’t take long. The plane could be held. In fact the pilot, the smart-ass, said that I was always late anyway, so the jet wasn’t scheduled to take off until 6:30. Bring him a burrito and a soda.

The reason I had always been late was because Tony had the time-sense of a toddler. I was never late on my own. Asshole. 

My eyes started to prickle too and I swiped my hand at them. I couldn’t take the time now to feel bad about Mr. Stark. I just couldn’t. Too much shit to do at the company level and now I was going to have Parker to watch after too. 

He wasn’t a bad kid. He had a good heart, I knew that, but most kids his age were not flinging themselves off of buildings to save little old ladies from muggers. And, Jesus, I’d never had kids, but if I had, they wouldn’t be recruited by MIT and CalTech like I knew Parker was. How do you protect a kid who’s too stupid to know when he’s in over his head and too smart to go to community college?

Basically, at that age, that described Mr. Stark too, and Mr. Stark had dealt with it by developing a serious cocaine habit. I didn’t think Parker would do that, but maybe, maybe it was just in the smart kid DNA.

I was not prepared to deal with that. I was not prepared to deal with a kid who had holes in his wrists. Or who was smarter than I would ever be. 

I took a deep breath in again, and tried to live in the now. This bullshit Ms. Potts was making me learn…

But short-circuiting the thoughts did help a little. I turned around to look in the glass and saw Parker with his head down and his shoulders shaking. Shit.

Few more minutes then. I had smoked for a lot of years, and I missed it now. I had quit it in the early 2000s when Mr. Stark was going through one helluva drinking jag. I told him if he could quit the drink, I could quit the smokes. I quit, he ended up on a three-day bender in Tijuana with a stripper named Mimi.

I could have gone back to it, cause he certainly didn’t honor his promise, but I enjoyed being able to run without my lungs burning, and so I stayed away from the cigarettes. But you know, they killed the time, while a teenager was losing his shit in a diner.

I glanced at my StarkWatch. I’d been out here for ten minutes. I really couldn’t stretch this out any longer. I took another deep breath and squared up my shoulders. I walked in the door, the bells ringing as I came in.

Parker must have been waiting for me to come back in, because he sought my face out and smiled at me a little. His eyes and face were red from crying, but he wasn’t crying now, thank baby Jesus.

“Parker, so you read the letter?” I said as I settled back in my seat.

“Yeah.” He picked a fry up and nibbled it. He didn’t seem like he was going to say anything any further.

“And? Parker, come on now.”

He looked at me, “So what did yours say, Mr. Hogan?”

“Parker, Ms. Potts, and you may not know this about her, but she’s big into meditation, and she’s been making us all learn how to do it, and as stupid as I think it is, it does help, but I swear to God - “

“Seriously what did yours say, Mr. Hogan? I just want to know.”

I sighed. “Fine. Basically the letter talked about a lot of stuff that you don’t need to know, because it’s personal stuff between me and Mr. Stark -”

He interrupted. “Same.”

I stared at him. God, Parker, I do NOT need to know that. I managed to swallow, still while staring at him, “Fine. Both of us have private stuff in our letters. You don’t need to know mine, and I don’t need to know yours.”

He nodded.

I continued, “Anyway, he told me to take care of Morgan and make sure that Ms. Potts was ok too.” Actually, he had said to make sure that Ms. Potts knew it was ok to marry again, when it was time, but to threaten the guy with a shovel if he ever hurt Morgan. I agreed with him on that. “Then he went on and on about investment advice, since he had left me money too.”

“You gonna take it?”

I grinned at him. “Mostly, it was him telling me things then telling me if I didn’t understand what he was saying to just hire someone. I hired someone. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Then he got to you and me.”

“Yeah, and what did he say?” He leaned over the table to look at me seriously.

“That he trusted your Aunt to make sure you were to grow into the adult you are and were meant to be, but that he trusted me more than anyone to watch out for you. I wouldn’t take that personal, Parker.”

“Take what personally?”

“Your aunt being trusted. Tony and I had been working together for over 30 years. He just knew me better - “

Peter gestured vaguely. “It’s not a big deal. I get that. So what are you supposed to do?”

I raised my eyebrows. “You probably know as well as I do, Parker. Basically, you and I are stuck together for awhile. You have to email, or call me with updates about your life.”

“You’re supposed to do the same, you know.”

“Yeah, that’s weird, Parker. I highly doubt you’re going to care that I sat on my ass for 14 hours in meetings, but sure, when you update me, I’ll update you.”

“Mr. Stark said it was so I could see how an honorable man lived, actually.”

Well, wasn’t that just a punch in the gut. Mr. Stark was like that. Busy telling me in my letter to get off my ass, so that I could lose some of my ass, and then he’d put something that … nice in Parker’s letter. I took a second to compose myself.

“Not that much honorable about taking the last banana at the meeting so that Schmidt in Accounting, doesn’t get it, you know? Anyway, between you and me updating each other, we’ll check in on each other, and I’ll make sure to be there for big life events, yada, yada, yada.”

Parker pulled his letter out. “He said this Mr. Hogan. _‘So I know you don’t know how to tie a bow-tie for your prom. I would have liked to have been there, but if you got this letter, I can’t be. So Happy will do it.’”_

“Yeah, he said something about that for me too. You’re gonna need to send me your school calendar because I need to get that on my calendar.”

He looked at me and continued, _‘And when you graduate from high school, and then college, and then grad school, Happy will be there. Yelling and cheering for you.’_

I cleared my throat. “That doesn’t really sound like me. I’ll be there. Your aunt can be yelling, ok?” 

Parker nodded, “Understood. Mr. Stark then says, _‘He’ll be at your wedding too. I don’t know where exactly he’ll be when he’s at your wedding, but he’ll be there.’_ What does that mean, Mr. Hogan?”

“I have no idea, Parker. He kind of rambled in my letter, how about yours?”

He quirked a grin at me, “Yeah, he did. So you’re really going to be at all of those things?”

“In mine, Parker, he said that I’d hold your first child and marvel. That also doesn’t sound like me, but I’ll chip in for the kid’s college fund, ok?”

He laughed. “I got the college fund worked out.”

I smiled back. “Yeah, you do. Anyway, so here’s the deal. You’ve got to email me or text me at least once a week. I’ll do the same. When I’m in town, which I won’t be for awhile, not while we’re getting the company sorted out, we’ll meet, do lunch, maybe take in a ballgame. To me it sounded like he just wanted to make sure that someone was keeping an eye on you. I can keep an eye on you.”

“So are you going to let me know what your email address is?”

“Nope.”


	5. Chapter Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never been a doctor, but I've been a patient! Please be kind and ignore my lack of medical knowledge :-)

New York City in May was beautiful. The trees were starting to leaf out, the flowers were starting to come up, and the drunks in the ER were yelling with dedication and verve. 

“Jesus, Parker, you had to land in the ER at night-time. ERs are louder at night.” I jiggled the arm of the gurney he was lying in until he looked at me. Sheepishly, but he looked at me.

“I didn’t try to land in the ER, Mr. Hogan.”

“Uh-huh. Is that why the nurse put you in bay 202, and I quote: ‘your favorite’, Parker?”

He nervously fingered the sheet. “My aunt works at this hospital, that’s why.”

“Well, that does explain why she’s been in here every 10 minutes or so to yell at you, not why bay 202 is your favorite.” Parker’s Aunt May was catching a shift in the ER tonight, and apparently the drunks weren’t keeping her so busy that she couldn’t come in and gripe at him.

It was a relief, really. If she had been really worried about him, she’d have asked to get the rest of the shift off and come to sit with him. Instead, on her first swing through that I was here for - she had called me as soon as the ambulance brought Parker in - she had yelled about him for not keeping his phone turned on and then turned to face me directly and winked, so I got the point that we were to be bad cop and bad cop here. 

I was ok with that. Especially since this was teenage bullshit, not superhero bullshit.

“Bay 202 is one of the quieter bays. It’s the way the room is set up.”

I took a contemplative swig of my diet soda. “You know, maybe once you get your engineering degree, you could get your architecture degree. Set up ER rooms.”

He sighed and stared up at the ceiling.

“Yep. Sure would be better than falling through a floor while looking for treasure with Ned. Which one were you, Scooby or Shaggy?”

He sat up at that. “Mr. Hogan! I was not looking for treasure. It used to be the brownstone where Ned’s family lived. He was pretty sure that when they had moved into Manhattan he had left behind the Death Star Lego set. We just went in to look for it.”

So, Ned’s family had been the kind of people that took advantage of the people who had been Snapped and squatted in the nicer apartments left empty. Ned wasn’t a young man like that, I knew. I’d taken him and Parker and my nephews out for a Mets game this past summer, and he had offered to pay his way. He’d been way more polite than the nephews, let’s be honest. Still,I filed that information about his parents away for the future.

“You didn’t answer my question. Scooby or Shaggy?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “I’d like to think Velma actually. The sensible one.”

“I don’t really think you’re made with the kind of legs to carry off that mini-skirt, Parker.”

He laughed, which was good. Neither his Aunt May or me wanted him to feel bad about hanging out with Ned, just bad about being reckless. His Aunt May had told me so, when she had led me to the soda machine.

“Besides, what if someone had been living in the house when you decided to go hunting for a LEGO SET?”

“We wouldn’t have gone in if there had been someone there. And obviously, there wasn’t anyone living there, or the floor would have been in better condition.”

“Yeah about that, you couldn’t shoot some webs to catch you and Ned?”

He held up his arms, encased in an MIT sweatshirt. “I tried, but my sleeves got in the way. Besides, it would have been my own webs, not from the web-shooter. My own webs aren’t really that strong, not in an emergency.”

“Ah.” I sat there and took another swallow “Ned’s doing ok, by the way.”

“Aunt May yelled that at me, one of the times she came in. Besides, I angled so that he landed on top of me.”

That I exploded at. “Jesus, Parker, have some sense! I’m a big guy too, so don’t get me wrong here, but Ned is bigger than you. Him landing on you could have hurt you, broke some bones. What the hell were you thinking?”

He looked up at me and held up his index finger. “One, that I’m stronger than he is,” and he lifted up another finger, “and two, I heal faster than normal people. Also, I’m fine, mostly.” He sat for a moment. “I’d also let you fall on me too, Mr. Hogan.”

“I wouldn’t be traipsing through abandoned houses, Parker, so don’t worry about it. We’re sitting here waiting for the doctor to give you stitches.” He had a good shiner on his left eye, “And X-Ray to come and take a look at your ribs, and someone else is going to look at you to pull out splinters. I’m not sure that qualifies as mostly fine.”

“Compared to falling into a pile of dust, I think I’m doing ok, Mr. Hogan.”

I snorted. “I don’t think you can go through life comparing everything to being Snapped.”

“Mmm.” He sat in silence for a moment. “What happened while we were gone, actually, Mr. Hogan? Why was Ned’s house sitting empty that long?”

I slid my eyes over at him. “They don’t talk to you about this in school? Your Aunt doesn’t talk about this?”

“My Aunt talks about missing me and being sad. The school not really. It’s mostly videos of the Hulk telling us concentrate on our grades, and on getting integrated back into society.” Schools had separated into two tracks, apparently, from what Parker and Vince’s kids had told me. The normal, un-Snapped kids went on being teenagers, and the Snapped kids had separate sessions where they talked about their feelings. But not, apparently, what it was like when half the world was gone.

“I thought those videos were from Captain America?”

“Yeah, well, after he did his runner, Mr. Hogan, he wasn’t here to make the videos. We have the Hulk now. It’s hard to take it seriously when he won’t ever be just Dr. Banner. It’s not like he’s coping all that well either.”

“True.” I lifted up my fist for him to fist-bump, which he did half-heartedly. “Look, I have no idea what the hell Ned’s family was doing during the post-Snap, but a lot of people took advantage of other people being gone to move closer into the city, make their commutes easier.”

He frowned, “It doesn’t seem very fair.”

He was right, it wasn’t, but I didn’t want to get into that. “I don’t know, Parker. To be fair, not many of us ever thought that you all would be back. When half the world goes, it gets really scary.”

“So what happened??”

“I’m SURE they told you the big picture. So don’t give me that. Isolated wars in other countries. The government here had to deal with a couple of stand-offs in Oregon and Wyoming. Riots.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why Ned’s house looks like a haunted house.”

“Abandoned houses fall apart really quickly. It doesn’t take long for the world to decay, as it turns out, if no one is watching it.”

“Alright, since you won’t give me a straight answer, Mr. Hogan, what did YOU do? You didn’t Snap, did you?”

I took a good look at him. He was working himself up. I slid my hand from where I was grabbing the bed-rail, to stretch mostly - this room was small - to slide over to touch his hand a little. That drew his eyes to me.

“No, Parker, I didn’t Snap. I was pretty lucky. None of my family did. People around me did, friends, but my family was ok. So I was luckier than most. But it was a sad time. Social conventions broke down, a lot. People would take over other vacant houses, and it just seemed easier.

“I spent a lot of time with Mr. Stark actually, after he came back from the planet you guys had been on. He had almost run out of air on the ship, and he had run out of food. He was in the hospital for about a month or so, and Ms. Potts and I took turns sitting in the room, trying to keep him tethered to us, tethered to his life. He was so upset about the Snap, and watching you go, that we were really worried about him at first.”

His voice sounded rough when he asked, “He missed me?”  
“Are you kidding? You crumbled in his arms. He missed you like crazy. It wasn’t until he got back to Earth that he realized it wasn’t just an isolated incident, that it had happened to people all over, not just where he was. He’d sleep in the hospital, and he’d wake up screaming your name.”

“Oh.”

I bumped his hand again. “Yeah, oh. I know it’s a rough adjustment coming back, but it was a rough adjustment losing everyone too. And now, I know, it may seem like everyone is too happy around you guys, but it’s because we ARE. We’re happy to have the people back who we thought were never coming back.”

He rolled over to look at me. “You all could clean up the garbage for us, you know. That would be swell.”

I smiled at him. “Nope. You should have seen the oil refinery fires while you all were gone. A little garbage is just how we show that we care.”

May swept in again. “Peter Benjamin Parker, what the hell are you still doing in your street clothes? X-ray’s coming soon, and you need to be in a gown!” She thrust a gown at him.

“I’m not sure I can get my sweatshirt over my head, Aunt May.” He hung his head, and bullshit, if he couldn’t lift his arms over his head. He hadn’t had any trouble pointing the TV remote. It was kind of heart-warming watching him act like a normal kid and lie to his aunt.

She stared at him like he had two heads. “Peter, for God’s sake, if you were having trouble, you could have asked Mr. Hogan or me.”

I smirked at him, “Yeah, Parker.”

He blushed. “Fine, I’ll try.”

I had no idea why he was blushing. He didn’t have anything his aunt or I hadn’t seen before.

“Umm, Mr. Hogan, can you go outside for a minute?”

Now, it was my turn to stare at him like he had two heads. “Uh, yeah sure, I guess.” 

I went outside and May pulled the curtain shut. I could hear her fussing at him, and then I could hear that the fussing turned a little more serious, like May was actually worried. I heard Peter speaking in a low voice to her, trying to calm her. I was about to go in to check on him, when a furious small woman barreled out of his room.

“Happy, what the hell? Didn’t he tell you he was in pain? If I had known that he had had that many splinters in his back, I’d have been yelling the hallways down until Dr. Sakorsky got here.”

I looked at her, blankly, “What?”

May’s angry face calmed down a little bit when she saw I didn’t know what she was talking about. She shook her head. “That kid, he’s gonna be the death of me. I don’t think he has broken ribs actually. He can lift his arms ok, but oh, Happy. My kid has bruises all up and down and splinters everywhere. Who the hell checked him in? Did you see anyone give him any pain meds or try to start an IV?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. He was getting wheeled to 202 when I got here. Every time a nurse pokes a head in, he or she sees Parker and gives a thumbs up and says they’re busy but they’ll be back.”

May bit her lip. “They all think he’s indestructible, but he’s NOT. He’s gotta be in pain.” She patted my arm, “I’m gonna go yell at people, you sit with him.

“Yes, ma’am. Do they all know he’s Spider-man?”

She shook her head, “No. Just that he’s here a lot and never gripes about pain. I gotta go, Happy.” She took off jogging to the nurses’ station.

I went back in. Parker was lying on his side in a gown, with a coverlet on him. I made sure to go sit on the side where I could see his back. I took a look and whistled. “Jesus, Parker. Your aunt was mad at me because she thought I knew how bad you were hurt, but fuck, kid. Your back is a wreck.”

His voice was small, “I didn’t want anyone to worry.”

I got up and switched to his other side so he could see me. “Yeah, we would have worried. It’s not normal to look like a porcupine. Your Aunt’s going to yell at people, I would have been screaming at people, if I’d known. We would have gotten you faster treatment and more pain meds - “

A harried-looking nurse bustled in. “Okay, Mr. Parker, we’re going to get you on an IV, and we’ll be feeding a sedative and a pain-killer through the line. Doctor will be in to start looking at your back.” He began gathering supplies and got a piece of rubber to tie around Parker’s arm to make the veins pop. “You shouldn’t go to sleep, but you’ll be woozy.”

“About frigging time.” I growled.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. Mr. Parker hurt himself worse than we’re used to. We didn’t think about the splinters.” The nurse took advantage of the distraction and popped the needle in.

Parker looked at me, scared. “What kid? You’ll be fine. I’ll be here while the doctor’s here, I promise.”

“Do you think I can still go to prom tomorrow?”

I sighed and looked into his eyes. The only reason I was in town was because I had flown in a couple of days early, to hang out with my brother, before I showed Parker how to tie his damn tie tomorrow night. “Parker, if you can stand upright tomorrow and not bleed on your tux, I will make sure you go to prom. Deal?”

“Deal.”

The nurse caught my eye and nodded, as he put a needle into the line. I nodded back and leaned down closer again to the kid. “Parker, you’re going to start feeling weird, ok? I’ll be right here, and if I’m not, your Aunt May will be, ok?”

His eyes were drifting to half-mast. “I want you here, Mr. Hogan. Stay, please.”

Meds caught people weird, I knew that. Mercy, my brother Vince’s wife, swears I told her the plot of every of every ‘Rocky’ movie except for Rocky V (because that movie is terrible) when I was coming out of the anaesthetic from my colonoscopy last year. She was my driver, and when I came to, she told me that I needed to watch movies that weren’t about boxing. 

I didn’t know why it was so important to Parker that I stayed with him, but now that I knew that it was, I’d stay, come hell or high water. I asked the nurse, “Are you guys going to kick me out?”

He shook his head. “May’s on a rampage. If it makes him feel better, you can stay. We’re not doing surgery, so it doesn’t need to be sterile. We’re just going to have you put on a gown and gloves, once we get to the exam room.”

“Why the hell are you moving him? You’ll make him uncomfortable.” I could feel myself getting the tone in my voice that I used to get, when people were trying to make Mr. Stark’s life more difficult. Mr. Stark used to tell me to calm down, but I wasn’t calming down at all here. Parker looked terrible.

He held his hands up, “Great, we have two of you angry at us. I am going to kill Shiva, she’s the one who triaged. We’re moving him for better light and room to move as the Doctor works. He won’t notice. He’s pretty zonked.”

I looked down at him and he was out of it. His eyes were open though, and he seemed to be watching my hands. I leaned down to him, “You ok, Parker?”

It was a struggle for him to focus, I could tell. “Not sleep, not sleep...ing, Mr. Hogan.”

My hand reached and out brushed his hair back before I knew what I was doing. “It’s ok, Peter, go ahead and sleep, if you need to.” His eyes opened slightly wider, but I couldn’t tell why. The orderly got there and we were moving. Just a couple of rooms over. May was sitting in a chair, arguing with a pretty red-head.

The red-head nodded at me. “I’m Dr. Sakorsky. This will take awhile from what May tells me. Put a gown and gloves on.”

I moved back from Parker to do what she asked. Peter panicked. I don’t know how he managed to go from three-quarters asleep to sitting up, frightened, reaching for me. “NOOOOO, don’t go, don’t go, Hogan!!! Nooo, don’t go!” He was screaming, and I was so surprised that I didn’t move fast enough. Another nurse moved over towards him, trying to keep the IV line in his arm from being pulled out.

Peter swatted him down, with a strength that I could forget, for long stretches of time, that he had. May shrieked, and I’d never seen her move as fast as she did now. “Peter, baby! Calm down, sweetheart, calm down.” 

She got over to his side and hugged him gently around his neck, one of the few places he didn’t have splinters. She started crooning to him and gently rocking him from side to side. “It’s ok, baby, it’s ok. Calm down.” She must have felt enough like someone he loved, or he recognized her voice, because he stilled in her arms.

He started sobbing. “Where did he go? Why did he go?”

I moved over to the two of him and patted at his arm to get him to notice me. “Parker, Parker, I’m right here, ok? I just have to get a gown and gloves on so they can work on you. It’s ok, I’m not going anywhere.”

He looked at my face, and then just buried his own face in his aunt’s neck and just cried, like his heart was broken. I just kept patting his arm, pretty sure that I couldn’t hurt him much there, and May kept whispering in his ear. I heard a clatter to our back and saw Ned looking through the window to the room. He looked devastated, but I didn’t have any time to deal with him. I looked at him, and then I turned back to Parker.

Dr. Sakorsky appeared at my elbow, and shoved a gown at me. “Get this on and do it in his line of sight.”

I nodded. “He’s a good kid. He’d never hurt anyone normally, Doctor.” I looked at the nurse who was sitting in a chair, having the damage assessed by someone else. I pulled my arm quickly away from Peter, but kept eye contact as much as I could as I tugged the gown on over my head. Someone came behind me, I didn’t see who, and tied the strings behind my back.

Dr. Sakorsky surprised me by saying, “I know he’s a good guy. No one’s angry. We just want to get him taken care of.” She turned to May. “Parker, see if you can transfer Mr. Parker over to Mr. Hogan here. He can probably get Peter calmed back down, ok?” 

May turned her head and her face was red from crying too. She nodded at me and I tried to smile at her, but I’m sure it looked like a grimace. We sort of danced-jiggled so that I replaced her directly at Peter’s front, and she was standing to his side, stroking his arm. She kept talking to him softly.

I gently pulled Parker’s head to my shoulder. I felt another someone put a hat on my head and tie the strings to keep it tight. I could hear Parker’s half-breathing, half-crying in my ear, and his body was shaking. 

“It’s ok, Parker, it’s ok. I’m not going anywhere. No one’s making me go anywhere. Calm down. Calm down. Shhhhh, shhhhhh. Can you feel me breathe? Just listen to me breathe, ok?”

He started to breathe slower and spoke into my neck. “Not going anywhere?”

“No, Peter, I’m not going anywhere. Not going anywhere, ok. Can you lie back down for me? Sooner we get this crap pulled out of your back, the sooner you can go home and sleep in your own bed, ok?”

He nodded into me and pulled away to lie down. He scooched himself as close to the side of the bed where I was standing as he could and grabbed my hand. 

“I’m right here.” I clutched his hand back. 

Dr. Sakorsky came beside me again and spoke to Parker again. “Ok, Mr. Parker. We’re going to give you a little bit more sedative, but no one’s going to make Mr. Hogan leave, ok? In fact we’re going to get him a stool, so he can sit right by you. Can we rearrange you a little better?”

He was starting to get sleepy again, but he seemed to be ok with it. Someone came and moved his other arm more comfortably, and then pulled him so that he was more on his stomach.

And then, for the next hour, I sat next to Parker. May sat on a chair on the side, crying on and off. We both watched as the doctor pulled out splinters out of Parker’s back and nurses mopped up blood with gauze. He’d wake up every so often and whimper, and I’d say “shhh, shhh” and hold his hand a little tighter and then he’d drift off again.

I’d been with Tony for 31 years, since I was 18. He’d put himself and me through worse shit than this.

But this was the longest night I’d ever lived through.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story's moving now!

One tetanus shot later, one mobile X-Ray Unit later, done in the exam room while May and I held lead aprons on our laps, several scripts for antibiotics, and two butter-fly bandages holding the cut over his left eye closed, an orderly was wheeling a half-comatose Parker to the entrance of the hospital with May and I following. I still think they should have done stitches over his eye because I’m pretty sure it will scar, but May just looked at me when I suggested it, and hell, it had been a long night. The scar would be an interesting story for him to tell later.

After the doctor had gotten his eye dealt with, she asked us if we wanted to have Parker admitted overnight for observation. May hugged her arms around herself and looked miserable. “No, Gina, thanks, but we’ve been enough trouble for one night. I’ll get him home.”

I turned to her. “Ms. Parker, I came over in the SUV when you called. I don’t know what you drive, but he’ll be more comfortable in my backseat than yours, I’m sure. I can help you get him to the car and then up to your apartment. I’ll drive you back here tomorrow to pick up your car.”

“It’s been a long night. Are you sure?”

I nodded. “In for a penny, in for a pound.” I leaned over Parker and carefully shook his arm until he stirred and opened his eyes.

I waited until his eyes focused on me. “Parker, we’re getting ready to break you out of here, ok? I’ll drive you and your aunt home and you can sleep in your own bed.”

“Prom?” He asked.

“Sure, why the hell not? You look like you’re ready to party.”

He sleepily smiled at me and went back to snoring quietly.

I turned to May. “Well, when the drugs finally kicked in, they really kicked in.”

She pursed her lips at me and then smiled. “That and it’s 3am. I’d rather be asleep too. It’s his metabolism, I think. It doesn’t take much for him to fight off drugs. I think it’s almost like he has to agree to let his body surrender to them, and if he doesn’t, they don’t have much effect.

“When he was younger, before the Snap, but after his powers started to come in, he and Ned snuck some alcohol from Ned’s parents’ cabinet. Irene called me, fit to be tied, after she found the empty bottle of vodka. I went in to yell at Peter and said Ned’s mom found the bottle, when did you two idiots drink?

“He hung his head, and mumbled, ‘Yesterday afternoon.’ I said, ‘Yesterday afternoon? You were back by seven and helped me cook dinner, then you did physics homework all night, don’t you dare lie to me.’

“He just moaned, ‘It didn’t work, Aunt May!’”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “College is not going to be as much fun for him as it could be.”

She patted his hip underneath the blanket, “Somehow, I still think he’ll find a way to get in trouble, Mr. Hogan.”

“After tonight, call me Happy.”

“And I’m May.” She turned to the door as someone came to it. “Hey Gary, you the orderly tonight?”

We spent the next ten minute or so waking Mr. Sleepy up and getting him moved to the wheelchair from the gurney. He was not ever truly conscious at any point, so I mostly held him up by his side and then maneuvered him into the chair. Gary took a look at him, and belted him in. 

He was wheeled out to the front door, and then I left the two of them there to get my car back from the valet. When the kid brought the SUV to me, I didn’t even bother to look for damage on the Caddy, that’s how tired I was.

Then we got Peter out of the chair into the backseat with his head resting on his Aunt’s lap with some more tugging and careful talking to him. The night was starting to take on that grainy, dreamy feel to it that you get when you are truly tired, with no real chance to sleep in sight. Fortunately, the Parkers’ apartment building wasn’t that far from the hospital and I was pulling in front of it after about ten minutes of driving.

I got out of the car, and opened the door where May was sitting. She said, “Wow, you’re lucky to get a spot so close to the building.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Yep, if I could pick one word to describe tonight, it would be ‘lucky.’”

She unexpectedly giggled. “Yeah. How do you think it’s going to be the easiest to get him upstairs?”

I eyed Parker. “If I can get him awake enough to know what’s happening, I can fireman carry him up. Does that work?”

“Works for me, if it works for you.” She slid out from underneath him. Fortunately, he stirred enough to wake himself up, and it wasn’t too much longer before May had opened the door of the apartment and then led me to his bedroom. She went in and switched the desk light on, probably trying not to wake him up too much with the overhead light.

She pulled the covers back on his bed. “Can you get him on the bed? He’ll get hot if he sleeps in his clothes like that. Can you get his socks and pants off? You can leave on the shirt and his boxers. I can do it, but he’s been weird about me doing it since he was about 9 or so…”

I plopped him on the bed as gently as I could and stood up, my back aching. I really did need to put more time in at the gym. “Yeah, no problem.”

“Cool. It’s like 4am. You wanna get him ready for bed and then you can sleep on the sofa? Honestly, I’d feel better if you stayed, both so you don’t crash your car being tired and then I’d have to wake Peter up to join YOU at the hospital, and then if he does wake up and gets upset if you’re not here. Is that ok?”

My whole body was ready to collapse. The sofa sounded wonderful. “Yeah, that’s fine. Thanks.”

She nodded. “I’ll get some blankets and a pillow and make up the couch. You want something to drink before you sleep? I’m going to make myself some hot tea. Do you want some, or I have beer, or soda?”

“A beer would be good, thanks.”  
“Ok.” She left the room and then I could hear her rustling in a closet. I got Parker’s socks off without any trouble, and moved toward his pants. I was thankful for small mercies that he’d decided to wear athletic pants for his jaunt through a haunted house rather than jeans so I didn’t have to mess with the button and the zipper.

I hooked my fingers at the band, careful that I wasn’t also hooking his underwear and started to pull them down as softly as I could. He came out of sleep a little and lifted his hips a little and smiled at me, not really seeing me. He grabbed at my hand and mumbled, “Come to bed.”

I froze stock-still, which, because this truly was the suckiest night ever, left me in eyeline view of his crotch. He was half-hard. God bless teenagers. But it left me thinking who he could be thinking I was. I might be many things, but Mr. Stark’s double, I was not. 

I finally gathered my wits about me and pulled his pants the rest of the way off, got the covers on top of him, and shhh-shhhed him until he went back to sleep. I closed the door as quietly as I could.

I grabbed my phone out of my suit pocket and started reading through the messages as I made my way to the kitchen. Vince had sent me a text bitching me out for missing our planned dinner with Mercy and the kids. THEN he must have checked his phone messages, because he texted me again saying I was working too much - because to him, Parker was another piece of my job - and I was an asshole. Then about an hour later, after Mercy probably talked to him, he had sent another text asking, ‘ _kid ok?’_

I thumbed a quick response back. _Yes. Asshole._ Hopefully, the ding of the text alert would wake him up and then he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep for the rest of the night.

May was standing at the sink, as I came in the kitchen. She either normally wore the least sexiest pajamas ever, or she was making a special effort for me, but she was in blue pajamas with cows jumping over a moon as a print and a pink robe which had seen better decades.

She looked over at the table. “Your beer’s there. Give me a minute, and I’ll sit down with you.” She moved a kettle over to the stove.

I kept scrolling through my messages. Ned had also tried to blow my phone up:

_I heard Peter screaming as I was leaving. What’s up?_

_Why was he screaming? How badly is he hurt?_

_How bad is he hurt?_

_Why won’t you answer texts? Is he bad?_

_How bad is he?_

_His Aunt May’s not answering texts either???_

_Is he ok???_

_Please text back, even if you’re mad, Mr. Hogan._

_How bad is he????_

I took a long drink of my beer and then choked. I looked at the label, then looked at May as she sat down across from me. “No wonder Parker doesn’t like beer, he grew up with rat-swill, May.”

She snorted. “Why thanks, Happy.”

“Seriously, I’ll buy you guys better beer.”

She shrugged, “You can if you want, when you’re in town visiting Peter. I only drink it when I’ve had a really bad day at work, and Peter, despite being legally 23 now, is still only 18 in my eyes.” She pointed her mug at me. “You want some tea? When I was younger, I used to read tea leaves for my friends.”

“At four in the morning, I’d be afraid to see what my future held.” I looked back down at my phone. I really should respond to Ned, just so he didn’t try to wake the household up early tomorrow.

I texted back: _Bad reaction to meds. He’s fine. Don’t call him early, he’s home and needs to sleep._

He must have still been up waiting, since he immediately texted back. _Thanks!!!!! Have him call me when he’s ready. Tell him it’s no big deal if he can’t go to prom._

Well, then. May was resting her head in one of her hands as she sipped tea. Again, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Parker didn’t tell me that he was dating Ned.”

I mis-timed it because she started to choke. I got up and patted her on the back until she caught her breath. “What?!?”

I wiggled my phone in front of her. I don’t know why this news bothered me so much but it did. Parker and I had been talking for a year, every week, through calls or emails, and I did my best to see him when I could. I’d told him things about my family that only Vince and I ever talked about. And he couldn’t tell me who he was dating? I didn’t care if Parker liked guys. I just took that as part of the package of Parker, and I’d slept with guys too, once or twice.

“Ned says not to worry if Parker can’t make it for prom.”

She put her tea down. “Oh, that. Didn’t Peter tell you? This is part of the separate prom. The non-Snapped kids are having their own prom, and the Snapped kids are having theirs, and the high school is opening up to let the students that they WOULD have graduated with back in for the night. So Peter’s going to prom in a group with Ned and MJ and some other kids that he knew. He’s excited, says it’ll be like old times.”

“Oh.” I did know that actually. He had told me. I had just seen red there for a moment.

May sighed. “Of course it won’t be, but that’s something he’s going to need to figure out on his own. MJ’s going on to do her dissertation on 19th-century lesbians in the Suffragette movement at Oxford this fall and Ned is going to an investment banking training program at one of the big banks soon. But everyone’s trying, and that’s nice, right?”

“Yeah, it is. Sorry. I’m just tired.”

“I know. I’m tired too. Anyway, I think Ned’s still dating Leslie? Lisa? Liza? I don’t know the girl’s name. She has all the personality as a tub of wallpaper paste, perfect for Ned’s mom. I just know her because Irene is useless at certain things, so when he started dating her, I made sure to give him the sex talk and her too, and handed him several boxes of condoms from the supply closet and her several boxes of Plan B. And look!” She raised her hands in fake celebration. “No babies yet!”

I snorted and took a much smaller sip of beer this time and kept it down.

“Actually Laura, Linda, Lydia, whatever the hell, is a Snapped girl too. Have you ever noticed that two Snapped people, when they get together, don’t really have much to say? Peter and her hardly ever say anything to each other, and I don’t think it’s the whole tub of wallpaper paste thing. Peter’s been raised to be polite and he wants Ned to be happy. He’d talk to her if they needed to talk.

“The only thing I ever saw him say to her that I thought was something about it was she mentioned one time how cute Ned was in some dopey band t-shirt in front of Peter. And his face just sort of lit up, and said, ‘Did you see it in the red room?’ I swear to God, Happy, she just glowed then, and said, ‘Yeah’ and they just smiled like loons at each other for a couple of minutes.”

I raised my head up sharply at that. “The red room? Did you ask him about it?”

“Yeah, and he just sort of slid around me - we were in the kitchen - and asked me where the peanut butter was. You know how hard it is to talk to any of them about it, what it was like.”

I sighed and nodded. “If it makes you feel any better, he feels the same about us, that we don’t talk to him about it either, what it was like for us on our end.”

“There aren’t any words, really, are there, Happy? It was horrible and devastating and I spent every minute of those five years, wishing I’d just Snapped out with him. What was there to live for? I can see where both sides just… can’t find the words.”

“Yeah.”

She finished off her tea. “It’s time for me to go to bed. You know where the bathroom is, right? Sleep as long as you can. I’ll be quiet and try to keep him quiet too.”

“Have a good night, May.”

She patted me on the shoulder. “Well, at least I know he’s in bed and sleeping right now. Have a good night.”

I sat up at the table for a while longer.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prom's here!

I was dreaming a dream that I had a lot this past year. I was driving Mr. Stark around. He was sitting in the backseat, in the middle, gabbing like he normally did. He was also chewing gum rather manically, like he did the year that he quit smoking too. I could actually hear the fucking annoying pops in my ear, and I was getting ready to turn around and tell him to cut it out, when he broke in.

“Happy, I gotta be quick here.”

I looked down at the navigation system. It was a dream so I couldn’t see where we were driving to or the distance that we had to go, just a ‘Calculating…’ but it was never good when the boss wanted to you to go quick and you weren’t going quick enough. “I can try to speed up, sir, but I’m not sure of the speed limits here.”

Which did make sense, since we were driving through a dark forest, and there didn’t appear to be any streetlights, and then I noticed my headlights weren’t on either. I looked around the car trying to figure out how to get them on - it had been years since I had driven a car where they hadn’t automatically turned on, in fact - but I couldn’t find any buttons or switches that would seem to make them work.

I was starting to get annoyed and flustered when Tony spoke again. “You’re fine, you’re fine. Relax. Just keep driving.” He leaned up next to me, so that he was almost at my shoulder. “I’m pretty sure you can’t crash here. No, I gotta be quick for other reasons.” 

I turned to face him, even though some of these curves were starting to lash us around. It felt like we were going up a mountain, but we were on flat land. “Ok, I’ll bite. Mr. Stark, why do you gotta be quick?”

He grinned that patented Tony-Stark grin, the one that got you to believe anything he was going to say, no matter if he was trying to sell water to the ocean or not. “The dead don’t normally get to come back, you know. Just little windows of time and I have to bargain pretty hard for those windows. I try to spend them on Pepper, you know, not you, no offense, but here we are.”

I looked at him in the rear-view mirror, and just for a second, I saw a skull looking at me, and then his face came back and he was still grinning his Tony-grin. A wave of sadness so thick that I choked on it rolled over on me. It took a minute before I could speak.

“You miss her a lot, boss?”

“I’m spending those windows on sex-talk, Happy.” He chucked me on the shoulder, and then his voice softened. “Yeah, I miss her. I miss everyone. There’s people here I know - Mom’s here, Dad’s here, but not the people I know now. Natasha sends her love, by the way. She spends her time talking to Bruce.”

I nodded. Tears were still trying to come to my eyes, but Boss had something to say, so I needed to listen. “So why you here making me drive you around this creepy-ass forest instead of being with Ms. Potts then?”

“It’s prom night tonight, isn’t it? You tying Peter’s tie for him?”

“Jesus, you too? I don’t know what you know about what’s going on here, but Peter did something stupid -”

“You yell at him?”

“Until I realized he was actually hurt, yeah.”

“That’s good. He needs someone to yell at him sometimes.” He blew a bubble and popped it, leaned back against his seat and stretched his legs out.

“His aunt seems like she’s doing a fine job, all by herself. He’s a good kid, don’t get me wrong, and I don’t mind talking to him, but he’s got a family of his own.”

“Little more family never hurt anyone, not you, not him. So are you tying his tie for him?”

“Yeah. If he can stand upright without puking, sure.”

Mr. Stark adjusted his purple sunglasses. Even in my dreams, he dressed weird. “He heals quick. He’ll be fine.”

I wanted to turn to him and ask him all the questions I had about him and Parker. I looked at him again in the mirror, and he winked, just like he must have known what I was about to ask, and then I saw him. Really saw him. The guy I loved. Not like that. No matter what he and Parker had had, I had never had any illusions that Mr. Stark and I would ever have made a good couple, or would have had any kind of fun in bed together at all, and I can say with a clear conscience that I was happy for him when he was happy with whoever he was with, but I had absolutely no interest in him myself.

No, he was my brother, and my boss, and my friend and I loved him and I missed him, and the words just died in my mouth. Whatever had happened, Parker had never not acted with honor towards Ms. Potts and Morgan. He had respected their grief and dealt with his own on the side, without ever trying to make himself the center of anything. He’d talk to me about missing Mr. Stark, but never in a way that made me feel uncomfortable, and was just as likely to rattle on about the newest Star Wars movie as he was anything else.

Some things, I guessed, deserved to be private. And maybe this deserved to be private.

I cleared my throat and went back to the subject at hand. “So, what you’re saying here, Boss, is that you’re giving up time with your wife to ask me if I’m tying Parker’s tie? The afterlife must be as boring as shit.”

He laughed. “It has its moments. No, I’m here because May brought up something to you last night, and you’ll be poking and prodding and some things you need to leave the hell alone.”

I caught his eye in the rearview mirror. “The red room? Yeah, what the hell is that?”

“Honestly, Happy, I don’t really know. It really does appear to be a Snapped person thing, not a dead person thing. I haven’t seen any red room here, but you catch things here and there, if you listen hard enough.”

“And you’re listening hard enough?”

“Hard enough to know that no one on this side of things ever really considered the Snapped people to be dead, just a bureaucratic mistake that they didn’t know what to do with.”

“Who are you talking about, Tony? Fucking angels?”

“If these guys are angels, I’d eat my hat. Bureaucrats, office-workers, officious dicks? I don’t know. I’m not sure, but people who keep order. If you can ever get Peter to talk about it, I’d be interested in his take on it, but I don’t think he will be for awhile.

“Anyway, I think the Snapped people got certain things that we dead people don’t, and vice-versa. Vis-a-vis, the red room. No, I don’t know what it is, but I do know you’ll upset him if you ask about it. Like not teenager upset, where he stomps around and slams doors, but more the never-talk-to-you again upset.”

“They hold a lot in, the people that Snapped.” I observed.

“Yeah, well, we all got troubles, Happy. After the next turn, I’m going to have to leave you. I’ll see you on the flipside, ok?’

I slowed down, I didn’t want to take the next turn at all, but the car seemed to take over, and I had made the turn before I knew it. I felt Mr. Stark pat my shoulder, and I could smell his cologne, but he was gone.

I caught a sob in my chest.

+++++++++++

I woke up with someone roughly shaking my arm. I opened my eyes to a worried teenage face about six inches too close to me. I groaned, “Parker, what the hell? What time is it?”

“It’s about 9, I think. I was getting cereal and it sounded like you were upset. It’s why I woke you up.”

I sat up a little. “It doesn’t look like nine in the morning, Parker.” The living room was pitch-black.

He grinned at me. “Perks of being in a nurse’s apartment. There’s black-out curtains everywhere. If the shades are drawn, it’s like midnight all the time. It’s great for sleeping.”

I rubbed my eyes. “You are way too cheerful for someone who spent that much time in the ER last night.” I took a look at him. 

He flushed. “Sorry I caused you and Aunt May any trouble. I don’t really remember much once Jared put my IV in, but I’m guessing if you were sleeping on our sofa, something went weird.”

“It’s ok, don’t worry about it. We just got you home late. How are you feeling?” He looked downright chipper, whereas I felt like I’d been dragged through a field of shit, backwards.

He picked a bowl off of the coffee table and settled into an armchair. He shrugged. “Ok, I guess. I have a headache, but nothing terrible.”

“How’s your back feel?”

“Itchy, like it’s healing.” He took a mouthful of cereal.

“It’s too early for it to be healing.”

“I heal fast, Mr. Hogan.”

“Uh-huh. Take it you’re going to prom tonight?”

“Yeah. That’s part of the reason why I’m up.”

“I’m sure. You were super-excited about it last night.”

“Cause I am super-excited, Mr. Hogan! MJ will be there, and Ned, and Aniston, and Carson…”

“That’s great. What do you need, Parker?”

“I need to go pick up my tux. I knocked on Aunt May’s door, but she threw a pillow at me and told me to go away.”

“So leave a note, take a Lyft, and let me sleep.”

He fidgeted for a minute and then spat it out. “Aunt-May-won’t-let-me-have-credit-cards-yet.” 

I stared at him. “You’re a millionaire.”

“I KNOW, right??”

“Fuck, you’ll let me sleep if I give you my credit card? It’s on the coffee table in my wallet. Bring me the receipt when you come back.”

I swear to God, he positively bounced. “Thanks Mr. Hogan!”

“Uh-huh. Leave a note, there’s directions on the kitchen counter for how you’re supposed to take your antibiotics, and call Ned. He’s worried.” I laid back down, pointedly turning my back to him.

He came around to the back of the sofa and peered down at me. “You’ll be up by two, right?. I’m going to need to get ready.”

I lifted my head up and glared at him, “I’m sure you’ll wake me up, Parker. You seem to be good at it.”

He grinned, “Thanks again, Mr. Hogan.”

I didn’t fall back asleep until I heard the door close.

+++++++++++++

May was fussing around in the apartment. “Do you need some of that hair goop you use, Peter? I got you some.” Peter was showering.

“Can he even hear you, May?”

“I swear, Happy, he’s not joking about senses like a spider,” she said, just as Peter yelled, “Yeah!”

She yelled back, “It’s on the kitchen counter, when you’re done!”

“Ok!”

She scrubbed at something on the coffee table that I couldn’t even see was dirty. “Peter, you want me to wrap your ribs when you’re done?!”

“No!”

“Is that ‘no’ my ribs don’t need to be wrapped or ‘no’ I’m being stupid and not letting my aunt, the nurse, wrap my ribs?!”

The water stopped. “Both!”

“Do you all just holler to each other all the time?”

May said, “Yes,” just as Parker yelled, “No!”

I just shook my head and then yelled. “Parker, I grew up boxing. I’ll wrap your ribs.”

“No!” He yelled.

I walked to the bathroom door and knocked on it. “Parker, as the person who didn’t get to sleep until 5am because of your ribs, I’m wrapping them!”

The door opened and his head stuck out. “Aunt May, can I have the hair stuff?” 

She handed it inside. “When’s Ned coming over?”

“4pm. We’re leaving then and going out to dinner.”

“Parker, ribs.” 

He turned to me and sighed. “I don’t think I need it, Mr. Hogan.”

“Don’t care. Put the goop in your hair and I’ll come in and do it.”

“Can I at least put pants on?”

“Because I’m a nice guy, yeah.”

He rolled his eyes. “Fine.” The bathroom door shut again.

May yelled again. “Can I take photos tonight or are you going to yell at me?”

“It’s fine. Just make it quick, Aunt May!”

“I’ll take as many damn pictures as I need, Peter Benjamin Parker!”

“Fine!” I could hear clattering.

She turned to me. “You want a soda? This is going to be a long afternoon.”

“Nah, water’s fine. I need to keep my head about me, I think.”

She shook her head. “There were years I mourned missing this moment with him. Yeah. I was wrong.”

The bathroom door opened and Parker came out, wrapped in a towel. “You need to stop talking about me, you guys.”

“Nope! Go get your pants on, so Happy can get your ribs wrapped.” She eyed him, clinically. “You look better though. Did you take your antibiotics?

“YES! Stop, I’m fine.”

“Mmmm-hmmm. Go a week without falling through a floor, and we’ll talk.”

He sighed and went to his bedroom. I turned to her. “So you’re going to take a buttload of photos right?”

“So many, yeah. As many as humanly possible.”

“Yep.” I nodded with satisfaction.

Parker came out. “I have my pants on. I don’t think I need my ribs wrapped, but fine, Mr. Hogan.”

I got up and stretched. “It won’t hurt anything, and you’re going to have a long night.” May handed me a roll of ace bandages and some scissors.

I got into his bedroom, and he was futzing with his hair again. “Your hair looks fine, stop messing with it.”

He turned to me. “Don’t wrap it too tight.”

“I’ll wrap it the way it needs to be wrapped. Calm down.”

He made a face at me in the mirror. I made sure to make a face back. I pulled the edge out. “Put your arms up a little.”

I started wrapping. “Jesus, Parker, how the hell do you have a six-pack?”

He snorted. “I’ll teach you how to jump off buildings and use your core to swing around.”

“Thanks, but no.” I took a look at his back. “You look better.”

“I told you. I heal fast.”

“I’m still wrapping your ribs. Don’t bother.”

“Fine.” He took a breath. “I meant what I said. I really don’t remember much after they gave me drugs last night, but thanks for coming last night. And I’ve gotten some flashes. I’m sorry if I acted weird. Really.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “I’m used to you acting weird, Parker. It’s fine.”

He smiled at me. I remembered what May was telling me about Ned and his girlfriend. “I’m done. Get your shirt on.” 

He nodded and reached for the hanger.

“Do you have condoms with you?”

He did, I swear, a full-body flush. “What?!?”

“I’m serious, Parker.”

“I’m not having sex tonight, Mr. Hogan.”

“Yeah, you may not plan on it, but it’s prom. Take some condoms.”

He grimaced at me. “I think you’ve been watching too many bad movies.” He pulled his arms through the sleeves of his shirt and started buttoning it.

“Humor me. Also, if you drink, or get high, call me. I’m just going to be at Vince’s house fighting with him about some bullshit. I’ll come get you, especially if no one else in your group is sober.”

“We have a limo.”

“And I’ve BEEN a limo driver. No one gets paid enough to deal with teenage puke, trust me. I’ll take care of it and THEN make you detail the car tomorrow with a hangover.”

He chuckled. “I’ll be fine, Mr. Hogan. You’re worrying more than Aunt May.”

There was a knock on the door. “Guys, are you about ready to tie the tie? I want to take photos.”

“Yeah, Aunt May. Come on in.” He pulled on his tux’s coat. It looked nice. It was some kind of red velvet, and now I noticed, his pants had a thin red stripe in a matching fabric.

“Parker, looking classy. Who picked that out for you?”

He caught my eye. “Honestly? It was Mr. Stark. It was in my letter - go to this place when it’s prom. They’ll have your suit.”

I shook my head. “He really had a lot of free time as he was designing time-travel, didn’t he?”

“Apparently.”

“Well, let’s not disappoint him. May, you ready for the pictures?”

“Absolutely.” She lifted up her phone.

“Where’s your tie?” Parker handed it to me, formally.

“Let’s do this thing.” 

The pictures that May sent to me later showed us all smiling into the mirror, all looking happy, all looking at each other with pride. We looked good, after all the shit we had been through, we looked good. 

Boss would have been proud.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're starting to get to the good stuff! (The smooching, of course :-))

“Knock, knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Banana”

Parker winked at me. “Banana who?”

“Knock, knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Banana,” Morgan was giggling loudly now, getting ready to deliver the punch-line of the wittiest joke her second-grade self knew. Ms. Potts popped a grape in her mouth and smiled down at her daughter. We were sitting on the deck of Ms. Potts’ house. The weather was gorgeous, and the jokes were bad.

“Knock, knock”

“Who’s there?”

“Orange.”

Peter went for it, setting Morgan up for her big ending. “Orange who?”

“Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?!?” Both Morgan and Parker broke into peals of laughter. Morgan’s I knew, was genuine, and damn, if Parker’s laugh wasn’t genuine, he was a better actor than I knew.

And I knew, having seen him in a play last year, when he was a freshman at MIT, that acting was not something he should ever quit his day job for. Ever. He had gamely promised his Aunt May that he wouldn’t spend all of his time on science and math, and that he would also try to take a class in the arts once a semester, or act in a play, do something to allow him to see other parts of who he could be.

He had come off the stage after that play and had met me in the hallway after it was done. Parker was back in his street clothes and had taken most of the stage makeup off, but he hadn’t gotten all of the mascara off his eyelashes. I was so surprised about how it much it made his eyes look bigger that it took him two times of asking, “How did I do?” for me to answer.

“You tried, Parker.”

“Yep, that’s what Aunt May said on opening night. I don’t think this is for me.”

“Nope.” I took him out for a late dinner and let him ramble at me about medical adhesives to let him get his footing back that night before I drove him back to his dorm.

Now, however, on this-almost-summer day, he was making Morgan feel like a hundred bucks, laughing at every joke she could think up. 

“Hey Morgan. I have a riddle. “Why did the robot run away?”

She thought for a minute. “I don’t know why. Why did the robot run away?”

“It heard an electric can opener!”

She laughed so hard that you could see the chewed-up grapes in her mouth. Ms. Potts looked down at her and mock-grimaced. “You two are a laugh riot. Chew with your mouth closed, honey. Hey, Morgan, I bet if you grab a deck of cards from the junk drawer you could find people to play Go-Fish with you.”

“Yay!” Morgan ran through the open deck door to get the cards. Ms. Potts stood up, “Sorry for sacrificing you all, but I thought you could use a break from the jokes. I’ll go grab some lemonade to make it up to you. Be right back.” I marveled that house this big and this well-equipped could still have a junk drawer in its kitchen.

Parker’s finals week was next week. I was here this weekend to get his big stuff, like the dorm fridge and his ugly-ass futon, moved into storage for the next fall. His Aunt May would coming up next week and picking Parker and his clothes and computers up after the finals were over to take him back to the City. 

Since all of us were so close to Ms. Pott’s summer house on Cape Cod, she was nice enough to open it up early to let Morgan and Parker hang out.

Ms. Potts was also very, very nice and had announced in April that she was going to Parker’s student art show this particular Friday night, as soon as she had gotten the invitation from the school, over Parker’s protests. I think she had gotten it because she signed some of his tuition checks. _I_ hadn't gotten one. I only knew about it because of the email from Parker, desperately asking me not to attend.

“It’s not going to be very good. It’s not an art exhibit, really. I just took a photography class, and our final is to pick our five favorite photographs of the semester and mount them.”

“I’m sure they’ll be wonderful, Peter.” This was over a three-way video-conferencing call in April, set up to make plans for the pre-finals weekend.

He frowned a little. “Mmm, no, not really.”

She raised her eyebrows and smiled. “I’m sure Happy and Ned and Lauren will want to come too. “ 

Ms. Pott was being even more exceptionally nice and was planning to invite Ned and Lauren to the house for the move-out weekend.

I had focused on Parker. “Are the photographs as good as your acting?”

He made the unsure shaking motion with his hand. “Maybe?”

I tossed a strawberry in my mouth. I was trying to eat healthier. “Promising. I’ll be there with bells on.”

“Will Morgan be able to come?” Ms. Potts asked.

“Why wouldn’t she?” Parker asked.

“I thought maybe there would be adult themes.”

“That would have made class more interesting, but no, I don’t think so. It’s a photography class for beginners. I just took pictures of people. And things.”

“People. And things! Parker, I, for one, am already getting jazzed about this.” I said.

“Mr Hogan --”

Ms. Potts broke in. “We’ll make a weekend of it then. You’ll come out Thursday, of course. Spend the day at the house on Friday, we’ll all see some art that night. Wonderful. We’ll make sure to have dinner after the show. Do make sure that Lauren and Ned feel comfortable coming, Peter.”

“Ned’s really busy at the bank, Ms. Potts--”

“Oh, it’ll be so much more fun if they come. Tell him to take some vacation time. He’ll want to see your photography too, I’m sure.”

And that had planned that. The six of us were all going to be off to an art show in Boston this evening. We just had to let Morgan beat us in Go-Fish this afternoon first.

She bounced out again, waving a deck of cards, followed by Ms. Potts brandishing a pitcher of lemonade. “Morgan, you have the cards! Awesome!” Parker yelled. “I know Happy will be playing with us.”

I discreetly put my left hand over my right hand and extended the middle finger of my right hand to Parker. I could feel him kick me under the table as his eyes twinkled at me.

He turned to Ned and Lauren. “Which one of you wants to play? There should be four players.”

“I will,” Lauren said. Despite what May had thought of her, two years ago, she wasn’t a tub of wallpaper paste. She was just very quiet. Very sweet, but very much her own person, keeping to her own self. 

It was the way that I remembered Parker being, in the aftermath of coming back from the Snap and Mr. Stark’s death. Parker had been so shy with me at first that I had made the mistake of thinking he was always like that, but he was snarky and funny. And he always managed to hold his own, even when he was hanging out with Vince and his boys, who were all a bunch of loud-mouthed jerks.

I got the feeling that Lauren just hadn’t had anyone to help break her out of the Snap-shell. Ned loved her - a new diamond ring shone on her finger - and maybe they talked about things when no one else was around, but she still seemed still, and walled-off. 

“Cool.” Parker said. He got up and sat next to me on the picnic bench. I could feel his knee bouncing against me. I put my hand on his leg to still his. He looked at me and grinned. “Morgan, sit over across from me and Mr. Hogan. Lauren will sit next to you, ok?”

Morgan nodded and Lauren smiled at her. Ned finally looked up from his phone, “You can do it, babe!”

I shook my head at Morgan. “Morgan-Kitty, Ned totally doesn’t how good of a Go-Fish player you are, does she?”

“Nope. I’ve played a lot of Go-Fish.” She drank half of the glass of lemonade that Ms. Potts handed her and burped.

“So lady-like! Say excuse you, Morgan.”

“Excuse me…”

Lauren got up and sat next to her. “Ned, put down your phone and watch the rest of us play.”

He put a hand up. “Hang on, I’m just reading an article about Deadpool. Him and that X-Force group he’s got going on. Why don’t they just arrest him?”

I didn’t know what exactly Ned said, but I could feel both Lauren and Peter freeze up immediately. Peter looked down at the table for a minute, then when he finally raised his head, he caught Lauren’s eye. She nodded back at him. Both Ms. Potts and I were looking between them, but Ned didn’t seem to realize that something had changed in the mood.

Peter cleared his throat. “He’s not a bad guy, Ned.”

Ned looked up again. “He’s an assassin, Peter, with a lot of guns.”

“Still not a bad guy.”

I took a breath, wading into the conversation with some nervousness. “How do you know him, Parker?”

“He can’t die, you know. You can shoot him in the head, and he’d die…”

“But then his healing factor kicks in, and he comes back to life.” Lauren said, very quietly.

“It’s his power. Basically, you can’t kill him.” Peter added.

Ms. Potts and I looked at each other. Ned still seemed oblivious.

I grabbed a glass of lemonade, just for something to hold. It turned out to be Parker’s, but what did that matter? “So you met him, you know, when…”

“We were Snapped, yeah. He’d bring us news. He was funny.” Parker twisted his hands in a way that looked uncomfortable. His head was back to hanging down, and I angled my head down really far to see his face. His eyes were glistening.

I put my arm around him, and he tucked into me, surprisingly willingly. He was warm by my side, and I could smell his Parker-smell. I put my mouth next to his ear. “Let’s not ruin Morgan’s good time. After lunch, you and me are going for a run, ok?”

He nodded and looked at me.

“Lauren going to be ok?”

He looked towards her and she smiled. She looked upset but alright.

I squeezed his shoulders and let go. I ducked my head and looked into Morgan’s eyes. “Man, the adults are boring today, Morgan. Hand me that deck, and let me show you how Go-Fish is played.”

She handed the cards over happily as Ms. Potts and I caught each other’s eyes. It didn’t escape my attention, either, that I was including Parker with the grown-ups.

++++++++++++++++++++

He met me in the living room dressed in an old band t-shirt and athletic shorts. Ms. Potts was busy having “quiet time” with Morgan, which seemed to consist of reading a book to Morgan long enough that there was hope that she might go to sleep. It didn’t seem to be working as I walked by Morgan’s bedroom and heard her giggling.

Lauren was doing something with her computer on the back deck while Ned paced, talking on his phone. I knew his pain.

“How far do you feel like jogging, Mr. Hogan?”

“How far do you normally run, Parker?”

“That wasn’t what I asked, sir.”

“Five miles?”

He bit back a grin. “About ten a day. I already ran this morning before everyone got up. I’m good. How far is good for you?”

“Jesus. You’re going to blow out your knees before you’re thirty, you know that? We’re not going ten miles, I can tell you that.”

He grinned wider. “Yeah, I figured. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’ve decided to exercise more… “

“Uh-huh. Keep talking, Parker. My days of ten mile daily runs are past me, I know. How about three? You got a good route that has park benches on the way back?”

“Yeah. Three miles a lot for you?” He dared to punch me on the shoulder.

“Fuck you, Parker. I’m looking for a place to talk.”

He started to jog in place, “And rest. Don’t worry, I know places where you can sit, Mr. Hogan.” 

He moved in earnest towards the door now, looking over his shoulder to make sure I was coming with him. I took a moment to admire his ass - I was no Mr. Stark, but I wasn’t blind, and then reluctantly started to move to follow him. 

Parker was definitely taking it slower than normal with me. He never got out of breath and was always able to maintain a full conversation. A one-sided conversation, with me mostly grunting at him, but he still managed to talk a lot without actually saying anything. It was going to be pulling teeth to get him to talk about this morning, but this time, I really was determined to get him to let some information about the Snap out of him. For his own sake. Sure I was curious, we all were, but I really got the feeling that he needed to talk about it. Get some of the poison out.

I spotted a park bench and made a beeline for it. As soon as I got to it, I flopped into it and patted my hand to get Parker to sit down.

He looked down at me, confused. “This wasn’t actually the park benches I was thinking of. They’re at the half-way mark.”

“We’re at the halfway mark now, Parker.” My t-shirt was dripping with sweat. He didn’t even have a glow about him. I shook my head at the unfairness of it all. 

“Ok. We’ll have run about 1.5 miles, you know, Mr. Hogan. Not three.”

I sighed. “Fine. I’ll deal.” He sat down next to me. I took a look at him. “You can start calling me Happy, you know. Like everyone else.”

He looked at me with delight in his face. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. We’ve talked long enough and about enough things that not even Vince knows about, that you’ve earned it.” I leaned my elbows on me legs and looked at him. “I trust you.”

“You gonna call me Peter now, Happy?”

I shook my head and grinned at him. “Nope.”

He looked up at the sky and laughed. “I like that you always stay you, Happy.”

“Yeah. I like that about you too.” I took a deep breath. “So you trust me too?”

“You know I do.”

“Then talk to me about the Snap. Why do none of you talk about it?”

He bit his lip, then looked at me. “It’s complicated.”

“Yeah, so was living without you all, and we’re not perfect talking about it, I know that, but me, and your Aunt May, and Ms. Potts, and Ned, and MJ, we all try. We try, Parker. But the thing is, you’ve been on Earth. Both before and after. You know what it’s like to be here, on this planet, being alive. I’ve never been where you’ve been. Tell me what it was like.” I was surprised by how earnest my voice sounded, but I really did want to know, and I wanted him to be comfortable enough with me to talk to me about it.

“Ok. But it’s hard… to figure out what to say. Ask me questions. I’ll try to answer, ok?”

“Fair enough.” I thought for a minute.

“Ok, Mr. Stark said you seemed to know you were going to dust. No one else seemed to know that was happening to them. Did you know?”

He breathed in through his nose and breathed it out. “Yeah, I knew I felt sick. I knew something was wrong. Obviously, I don’t think I could have guessed the dust thing - I’d only ever seen the vampires in that Buffy show that Aunt May watches go to dust like that - but I knew I was sick.”

“How did you know?”

He shrugged and looked at me. “I just did. It’s something about the spider-bite, I think. I can tell if things are about to go wrong, if things are about to get dangerous. I don’t think it took me long to turn to dust, did it? It didn’t feel long.”

It was my turn to shrug. “I wasn’t there. But Tony said that it seemed fast.”

“It felt fast.”

Ok, time for the next question. I thought about it for a minute. “Did you ever try to find Deadpool when you got back?”

He turned his head quickly in surprise. “No? Why?”

“We could probably put some manpower into it. Things are quiet right now at the company. I could put a couple of guys into looking for him.”

“Umm, I’m pretty sure he would just shoot your guys, and then brag about his guns to the corpses.”

“Yeah, he seems like a fun guy, Parker. But if you wanted to talk to him, I could put some guys who could hold their own in the shooting department on it.”

He shook his head. “No, I’m good. I think you think there’s a bigger relationship between me and Deadpool than there was. There wasn’t. I spoke to him maybe twice. Just the way Ned read the article today rubbed me the wrong way. A lot of things Ned is doing now is rubbing me the wrong way.”

“Uh-uh. You’re not distracting me from the Snap discussion by tossing me friend issues. We’ll talk about Ned later.”

Parker sighed. “Fine.”

“So where were you? You were someplace. You were talking to people. Doing things. Where were you?”

He sat silently for a moment.

“Parker?”

“I’m thinking about how to explain it. Give me a minute.”

“Ok.” We sat in silence for a couple of minutes. I tracked a bird. There was some garbage that needed to be put in the garbage can. I breathed. I just let him sit. Some things are big and hard to find words for. I knew that.

“Ok. I think I have it, Mr. Hogan.”

“Happy.” I reminded him.

Parker nodded. “Happy. Ok. I think it was like a waiting room that we were in. A really big waiting room. In any direction I turned, I could see so many people. This is when it first happened. Time didn’t work the same as it does here. Not in the beginning, not ever. So I don’t know how long I was in the waiting room.”

I just looked at him. “Ok.”

“Anyway, after a while... Like maybe twenty minutes of our time, like yours and my time, Happy, maybe a year later, someone rushed by and asked me, ‘How old are you?’ “I told her, and then she asked my name. I told her that too. And she just stared at me. So I asked her what was wrong, Happy.”

“Sure. What did she say?”

He laughed. “She said, ‘Fuck, you’re not supposed to be here yet. Like not for a long time, what are you doing here?’ Then she went and asked the person next to me. And the person next to that person, and the next person after that. Next thing I knew I was in a support group.”

That was the last thing I had expected to hear. “What?!?”

Parker nodded and smiled. “Yep. She wasn’t the only one asking, you know. It wasn’t like I was the first person they asked, and THEN they figured it out. They were fanning through the crowd, asking everyone. After that, they decided that we weren’t dead, and that we’d probably be going back once someone figured out something. Someone - not the first lady, someone else - came and told me that I was going to be in Group 3105AT, which kind of tells you how many of us there were.”

“What did you do in the group, Parker?”

Another shrug. “Mostly live with them. It seemed like a random group? I don’t know. But we were assigned together. We “lived” - “ he made finger quotes - “in the same neighborhood. I had a house of my own. We really did go to a support group, where we tried to cope. Most of us did ok.”

“Who were the people who assigned you to groups?”

“That, I don’t know. Maybe angels? But not like the angels in the Bible. More like people who were really, really confused about us being there. They tried to keep us calm and focused on things. But they really didn’t know what to do with us. You’d catch them just staring at you with this really puzzled look on their faces. Thanos really threw the whole system for a loop. 

“The nearest thing I can think of, Happy, was that they were used to helping people who had actually died, getting them where the dead go? I don’t know. But I do know they tried for us. I think all of us who came back are grateful. We don’t miss them, exactly, but we feel for the people that were very, very confused, and overworked, because there was a lot of us, they still tried.”

“So what’s the red room?”

He flashed a look at me. “Who told you about the red room?”

“Your Aunt May, that night you fell through the floor with Ned.”

“I don’t even know where she heard that.”

“But it exists?”

He turned to face me head on. “Mmmm. Yeah. It does. And I think one day, I’ll feel like I can tell you. But not right now.”

I couldn’t quite keep the hurt tone out of my voice. “You just said you trusted me.”

He hesitated and then patted my hand gently. “I do trust you, Happy. But I told you that time didn’t work the same way there. It moved forward and backward, side-by-side. The red room, I think, was a forward jump. And I think you and I have to get where I can tell you at the right time, and I don’t think you can rush that. I don’t think we can.”

“So how come it’s the right time for Lauren, then?” My voice was still more accusatory than I wanted it to be, but it felt like this was important and he was keeping it from me.

He bumped his shoulder into mine and held himself there. He dipped his forehead to my shoulder, and spoke quietly. “You have no idea, Happy, how much I would like this to be the right time. I’m ready for it to be the right time. And Lauren’s right time came before mine, and I'd like to rush it. Yet you’re the one that keeps telling me to do all four years of college and not do it in two and just go to grad school. I’m ready to go to grad school too.”

I leaned my head down towards his and just breathed the scent of his shampoo in for a minute before I chuckled. “Tony rushed his college years and look what happened to him.”

“Yeah, and when I do the eight-ball of coke, you’ll be the first person I call so you can yell at me.” I snorted at him and lifted my head up. He lifted his head up too, but didn’t move away. Instead he caught my eyes with his and wouldn’t let mine go.

“Happy, I’d tell if I thought I could, if it was the right time. But it’s not. Things on earth are spaced out in discrete sections. First we do this, then we do that, than that other thing over there happens. It doesn’t all flow together. If we do things in the wrong order, it gets all jumbled, and then it comes out wrong. I don’t want this to come out wrong.”

I sighed. “So you’ll tell me one day?”

He leaned his head toward me and for some reason, for a moment, I thought he was going to kiss my forehead, but he moved away at the last moment. “Yeah, I’ll tell you. I promise.”

I patted his leg. “Ok. I’ll hold you to it. We need to get back to get dressed to see your art.”

“It’s not art.”

“To Ms. Potts, it’s art.”

“She really hasn’t seen it yet.”

++++++++++++++++++++++

Ms. Potts was dressed in a slim black sheath dress (Tony had told me what it was called one time), Morgan was in a dress with a skirt that she liked to spin around in to see the skirt flare out, Ned was in hipster wear, Lauren was in clothes that made her look like she wanted to sink into the floor, and I was in my dark suit uniform.

Parker was also dressed in a suit, and truly epic blush on his face. He looked like a tomato. I made him take several selfies with me. Me with a shit-eating grin on my face, him blushing. Me holding bunny ears behind his head, him blushing. Me holding a thumbs-up, him blushing. It was going to be a great photo series that I could pull out for any necessary blackmail situation in the future. I tagged it “blackmail” in my phone. 

I knew I would need to be able to pull it up at a moment’s notice. Ms. Potts and Morgan drifted off to look at a photo series of a circus. I could hear Morgan-Cat talking about the ladies in the sparkly dresses. Ms. Potts murmured back softly.

Ned took a look at a photo series of autumn leaves and remarked to Parker, “This is a lot of leaves.”

“It’s kinda hard to find a subject, I guess.”

“Are we going to get to your art, Peter?”

“Not if I can help it, Ned.”

Ned grabbed Lauren’s hand. They smiled at each other, and for a moment, I could see that they loved each other. “I thought there’d be more naked people, to be honest. There’s just a lot of pictures of leaves and flowers and bridges.”

Parker sighed. “It was a beginning photography class. We were mostly learning how to use the dark room, and the light meter on the camera. I never said the photos were going to be great.”

Ms. Potts came up behind me, holding Morgan’s hand, while Parker and Ned bickered. She tugged gently on my sleeve and whispered. “I found his photos, Happy. mCome look.”

I looked at her. “Sure, let me just grab Ned and Lauren.”

“No, come alone.”

I nodded, a little confused. She walked me over to a corner and gestured. “Here’s his section. He’s a very good photographer. He has an eye for framing and light. They’re things that I don’t think can be taught very easily. If he wanted to, he could probably make a go of it. I have some connections --”

“I’m pretty sure he wants to be an engineer.”

“Sure. I understand. But you should still look, Happy.”

So, I did. His “people and things” were my brother Vince and his boxers at the gym. Some of the investing I did, after Mr. Stark left me money, was buying Vince his own gym. I was a silent partner who never let an opportunity to tell Vince that he was doing it wrong go by. It was definitely the riskiest investment I had done, but Vince had been making a go of it.

Parker had taken shots of boxers fighting. Even I could tell the action photos were good - they looked like they could be in a magazine, or hung on the wall of Vince’s gym, if he ever took my advice and classed it up a little. There was a photo of my nephews fighting over their haul from the vending machine. Another picture was Vince lecturing someone. He looked intense and you could see that he was utterly focused on what he was talking about.

And then there was a portrait of me. Parker had caught me from the side. I was smoking a cigar and laughing at something, my head thrown back. I seemed to glow in the light. I looked happy. It was the best picture of me that I’ve ever seen, and I’d had some photos taken of me with Mr. Stark for business magazines, by high-level photographers. 

I turned to look at Ms. Potts. She smiled at me and patted my arm. “You need to ask him for a print of that.”

I looked back at the picture. “It is a good one, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly. “If I had ever had a photo taken of me with that much love, I’d be showing it everywhere. Maybe there’s one of me like that, just after Morgan was born.”

I shook my head. “He doesn’t love me, Ms. Potts.”

She reached for my hand and tangled our fingers together. “Happy, that photo shines with love for you. I saw it the minute I turned the corner. You need to get a print of it.” She lifted my hand up and kissed it.

“Let me go grab Ned and Lauren. It’s almost time for us to drive back so we get home before Miss Morgan turns into a pumpkin. Don’t worry, Ned won’t notice and Lauren is so quiet, she won’t say anything. Peter is so … Peter-like, that I’m sure he thinks we can’t see it. But that photo - I knew how he felt about you, but he captured it so well in that picture. He really took a brilliant photograph. Maybe a once in a lifetime one.”

I repeated. “He doesn’t love me. He can’t.”

She smiled. “Yes, he can. He does.” She reached for Morgan’s hand. “We’ll be back.”

I turned back and looked at the photo. Well, shit.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting to the good stuff now!

I decided to deal with what Ms. Potts had told me about Parker’s feelings the same way that I dealt with a lot of things. With a mask of obliviousness and avoidance. Fortunately, he was back in New York city for the summer, his homegrown stomping grounds. I’d get periodic texts telling me that he had stopped this burglary or that mugging, with the occasional tossed-in selfie with small children, with him in uniform. Once he sent me a photo of him standing next to someone in a gurney who was being loaded into an ambulance, but both of them were holding a thumbs-up, so I figured the ambulance was more of a precaution than an actual necessity. 

I’d say the same things back that I always did. Like, “Man, you take a lot of selfies for someone who claims to be shy,” or “I feel like you’re not taking enough credit for all the good things you do, what with your front page photo in the newspaper this morning and all. Would you like me to call the press and tell them that you rescued a kitten from a tree?”

Even when we were in the same town, which we were this summer, we’d not spend all of our time together. He had his superhero life and his life with his Aunt and his friends, and I had my own life. I took him out for the normal breakfast once a week, and I saw a terrible action movie with him once, and that was the normal amount of time, with the normal amount of conversation. I made really so very sure that things were normal. Absolutely-fucking-normal.

So I’m pretty sure I’m being ok with him. Not making him nervous or anything. Me though, I was a wreck. My go-to coping strategies of ignoring and repression were really letting me down this time. I could stuff things down during the day. Work kept me busy enough, and I did have a social life outside of hanging with Parker too.

However, weekly poker games and sparring with Vince at the gym were not enough to stop the dreams. Neither was me loosening my boundaries between work and life and letting work bleed over into everything - that wasn’t stopping the dreams either. To be fair, yelling at subcontractors in Tokyo over the phone at 10pm was never going to beat the dreams of plunging into Parker’s body and listening to him groan as he came. In my sleep. Only in my sleep.

Oh, sweet Jesus, the dreams. Here’s an example, and I wouldn’t share it if I could think of another way to express it, because these dreams are private, the way the sex-life you have with an actual partner is private. No one else needs to know about the secret jokes you have with your lover during sex. No one else should know the sounds your lover makes when you’re doing it just right and making them feel good, or the sounds you make when they’ve got it just exactly perfect and you’re losing your own goddamn mind. No one else needs to know what you talk about after the love-making is done, and you’re both winding down. All of that is meant for you and the person who likes you enough, possibly loves you enough, to let you let your guard down and be naked with them and touch them and laugh with them about the funny things that happen during sex and then lick the salt off of their shoulders where the sweat is pooled.

I can fuck anybody, and I have, when I needed it, but I can’t have those private things with just anyone, because there’s a difference between a warm body and a lover. And these dreams were all about Parker being my lover. It would have been a hell of a lot easier thing to get over if he only had the courtesy to just be a willing hole in my dreams.

There’s this one dream I had, unfortunately, the night after the terrible action movie - seriously, I don’t ask a lot of action movies, but a plot would have been nice - where I deep-throating him for what felt like hours, in the dream. And this wasn’t the rushed blowjob of an early relationship, where everyone’s tugging pants down and trying to find a flat surface, either vertical or horizontal, so that no one falls over, and you’re just trying to get off to get the thrumming in your blood to settle down. 

This was a settled relationship blowjob. We were both naked and it had the feel of the early morning, where we had fallen asleep together the night before, and we had woken up, and this was the way we had decided to wake up, with me making him feel good. I was settled between his thighs, and he was resting slightly propped up on pillows, watching me. He was gently running his hand through my hair and I was resting my weight on my elbows, talking to him. We were both smiling, and I wasn’t even sure we were really talking about sex, or if we were just talking, but we were happy.

For fuck's sake, in this dream, Parker had a pillow adjusting his hips up. This was something that I would never tell a one-night stand to do, or a new lover, because, well, I just wouldn’t. But if my partner is lying flat on their back on a bed, and I’m having to lean down from that angle, settled on my elbows, to give them head, after five minutes my jaw locks up and then I’m just trying to get the whole thing over as fast as I can so that I can loosen up my jaw again.

But here, his hips were settled in the perfect angle, and it was going to be a lot more fun for the both of us. I finally said something that made him roll his eyes and nudge my head down, and after a token play resistance, I went willing down. 

I was comfortable enough with him to tease him. I nipped at his thighs and licked at his balls. I lifted them up, and licked behind them, going down to his hole. He stretched his legs out further and I toyed down there a little bit licking around it, then sticking my tongue in and out, just playing, just enjoying him.

He was enjoying himself too. I could hear him groan and curse, the occasional cries of ‘Oh fuck, Happy, right there.’ Once there was even a ‘Harry, you do this so well.’ And the thing is, Harry is my actual name, but no one has called me that since I was seven, not even my mom, bless her heart, before she died. I fill it out on official forms and my taxes, but then I even forget that it’s my name, and here Parker was calling me that, just like he knew who I was.

And he was arching and crying out, and trying to maintain contact with me all through this. He petted at my hair, and rubbed my shoulder, and stroked the back of my neck, His hand grabbed at mine and I held it for a minute, twining our fingers together and squeezing them, before I let go to do something more important with my hand. His foot was rubbing my side. I reached over to rub at it for a moment, and my hand brushed against the tube of lube that I had down at my hip.

In the dream, it didn’t feel like we were we were working up to intercourse, just that he liked a finger massaging his prostate when he came. I agreed - that was fantastic - and marked where the lube was for later.

His hips were starting to jut up, thrusting his dick into the air, and he was panting. I lifted my head up to look at him, and he was sweating and his pupils were blown wide-open. Parker was gorgeous, and I could feel my own cock jump against where it was laying on the sheets. I rutted into it for a second. I grabbed his hand, and squeezed it, and he managed to focus on me. I nuzzled at his thigh. “What do you want, baby?”

“Uh… uh… mmmm, mouth.”

“You want my mouth?”

“Mmmm, yes, mouth.”

“Where you do you want it, sweetheart?” I nuzzled again.

Instead of answering, he reached a hand down and started playing with his dick himself. I took a long minute to enjoy the sight of that, because God in Heaven, that was fucking hot, before I pulled his hand away. He was reluctant because obviously that hand was making him feel really good, but I got it away, and then swallowed him in one go, down to the root to make sure that he knew that I could make him feel even better…

And fuck, that was when I woke up, in the way of dreams that you liked leaving you too quickly. I was shaking and my dick was hard enough to pound nails with, and I was leaking pre-cum all over the sheets. Jesus. I quickly took myself in my hand, and Jesus God, I wanted that hand to be his instead.

And this is the weird thing. I loved sex. I didn’t have a lot of it, all the time, hardly any since Mr. Stark died. I’d been too busy taking care of things at work and then with Parker, and the whole Snap thing had really thrown everyone for a loop. People were either having orgies on a Tuesday or no sex at all.

There’d been a couple of people in the past several years that I had picked up in hotel bars or in an airplane terminal. I got my rocks off, made sure that they had a decent time, and then I sent them out of my hotel room or got out of theirs, so that I could go to sleep by myself. Nothing good, but enough to keep me comfortable and not wanting. 

But I loved sex. I loved the feel of it, I loved the slickness of sweaty skin against sweaty skin. I loved burying myself into a needy body or having someone plunge into mine. I loved kissing people and feeling their breath on my face, or stealing their breath, so that you were both gasping and hungry. I loved having my cock sucked. I loved sucking cock and licking someone’s ass. I loved sucking hickies into someone’s neck. I loved playing with someone’s hair, and tangling our legs together, and that rush of first-time sex with a person where you didn’t leave the bed for four days, and then only for cold Chinese food and bathroom visits. I loved regular sex with a long-time partner, where you kind of had to schedule it in both of your calendars, but then it was fun and hot, and then you pulled out your calendars after to schedule the next round.

I sometimes thought, when I was particularly touch-starved, that heaven had to be having your bare skin against someone else’s bare skin, both of you groaning at the first touches because it just felt so fucking good to be naked with someone else who wanted to be naked with you.

All that being said, I didn’t enjoy, particularly, hand-jobs from other people. I had been doing this part to myself since I was eleven and had figured out what my cock was actually for, and I had learned how to make things go fast or slow, how to make things fast and hard, or slow and dreamy. My own hand knew best how to make me come that way, and while I was certainly never going to turn down a hand-job from someone else, it wasn’t the thing that I ever asked for or hoped that my partner would be particularly good at, and I’d usually try to steer us to something a little more fun. But, fuck, after that dream, I would have done anything in the world, anything at all, to have Parker’s hand replace mine.

So there was that dream, and I may have avoided texting Parker back for a couple of days after, just so I wouldn’t say something needy and wanting and scare him away forever, running away from the crazy man he didn’t want.

Those kinds of dreams, as much as I was weirded out by them, were normal, though. I’d had sex dreams about people I’d wanted in real life and people I would have ran from in real life. Sometimes it’s your subconscious just working shit out.

It was the other dreams I was having about Parker that really shook me though. They were dreams of first kisses. We had a thousand and one first kisses in my dream - in his Aunt May’s apartment, in my office, at Ms. Pott’s Cape Cod house, in a classroom, in Vince’s gym, next to a soda machine, God only knew where, out in the rain, in the sun, on a beach, in a penthouse.

The kisses were fast, they were slow, they were nervous, they were confident, some I had to convince him for, some he had to convince me for, some we were practically swallowing each other’s tonsils, others were just touches of our lips. Some were sweet, some were meltingly-hot. None of them I didn’t want.

And then there were the “normal” dreams, of us just being us. I dreamed of eating dinner with him in a restaurant and watching him talk with his hands and watching his lips. I’d dream that he was snuggled up next to me on the sofa while I was reading email on my StarkPad and he was watching TV, or that he was cooking dinner while I sat at my apartment’s island and watched him. We were sneaking kisses in the corner of his Aunt’s kitchen, we were holding hands and walking Morgan to the park. Parker and Vince were playing poker, and I was sitting watching them bullshit each other, after I had folded. We were in bed, and he was reading a book in boxer shorts and a t-shirt, and I was grumbling about something at work.

Those were the worst of all the dreams.

I’d wake up so lonely and reaching for the other body that should be in the bed. There was never anyone on the other side, and the one time that there was a body, it wasn’t the right body, and I barked at the poor woman to get dressed and get out. Not my finest moment, but it probably wasn’t hers either.

Between the two of us, my subconscious and I had figured out together that I was all on-board with this relationship with Parker thing. There was only one thing stopping me from talking to him about it, and that was, while I may be able to fuck anybody I wanted, I typically reached for the people who were achievable. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that super-models were dying to be with a man in his fifties who could best be described as stocky, or solid.

Parker had a six-pack, or even an eight-pack, I’d never taken the trouble to count because I’d have to stare at him too much. He ran ten fucking miles a day, and his picture literally was on on the front page of the _Times_ every so often. He was stronger than I was. He literally flung himself off buildings and swung around skyscrapers. He was brilliantly smart and funny, and in his twenties, and literally, I couldn’t see, looking at it from his viewpoint, what he’d see in me.

And I was like 97%, 99% sure that he had had a fling with Mr. Stark or a love-affair. I knew that Mr. Stark had loved him in his Mr. Stark way, and Peter had seemed to be unreservedly head-over-heels. I was not Mr. Stark. We didn’t look alike, I wasn’t nearly as rich, I didn’t have a flying suit, I wasn’t as snarky or funny or as smart as Mr. Stark. I didn’t have his magnetism, I couldn’t make crowds love me.

I would be a downgrade in lovers. It would have killed me to be second-place with him. My subconscious and I, we wanted him all in.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We were on the rooftop of my building. It was me, Vince, Peter, and Vince’s two sons, Leland and Andrew. Two guesses as to which parent named Leland and which parent named Andrew. They were twins and obnoxiously 14.

A new suit upgrade had been done for Parker, mostly a slightly tougher layer and a little lighter. Parker had been working on a new web formula too that was supposed to be slightly more sticky and able to spin out faster. The suit had been tested in the lab, and so had the webs. Tony had had a big gym space built in his laboratories for Peter to test things. It was three stories tall and had perches to jump from and swing to. He had tested the new suit and the webs there for the past several weeks, and everything seemed like they were working just fine.

Leland and Andrew had been bugging him for months to see him in action, and I think they had worn everyone down. Vince hated heights and was standing in the dead center of the roof, looking miserable with his arms wrapped around himself. Parker looked tired with his mask off. I had asked him earlier if he was up for this. He’d nodded and said he just wasn’t sleeping well.

That made two of us, so I said, “Just swing around for twenty minutes or so. I’ll make dinner for you after, and send these assholes home. If you want, you can crash in the guest bedroom.”

“I’ll take you up on the dinner, but I’ll just go home after. MJ’s flying in early tomorrow, and I’m meeting her at JFK to pick her up. I don’t want to wake you up when I go.”

Fair enough, I didn’t want to wake him up when I came.

Parker turned to Leland and Andrew. “Alright guys. I’m going to put the mask on. Let me get a feel for the wind and stuff on my own, and then I’ll come back and you can climb on my back and I’ll swing you around. Ok?”

Leland, always the most polite of the two, chimed in. “That sounds gay, Parker.”

Parker calmly turned to him. “Leland, dude, I am gay. You’ve been up my ass, in not a fun way, for the past three months about getting to see me do this in person. You’ve either got to be on my back, or I’m holding your hand and letting you dangle, and trust me, you will NOT like what centrifugal force does to you.”

I could hear Vince snort and then he and Andrew started laughing their shit out at Leland who was turning bright red and blustering. I coughed. Peter let them laugh themselves out, and then smiled in a more friendly way at Andrew, who I think he saw a bit of himself in. Andrew was the smaller of the two twins and he was the one who did better in school.

“Andrew, I’ll take you first, ok?

Andrew calmed down and nodded. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Parker tugged his mask down and turned to me. “Happy, I’m going to fall off the North side of the building, catch myself on the building opposite, and the pivot over to that building over there,” he pointed. “I’ve got Karen turned on --”

Leland, obviously trying to get his own back, “Is Karen your girlfriend?”

I could see Parker sigh, and he had an irritated tone in is voice. “DUDE! I just told you, I’m gay. No, Karen is my AI, and she’ll be monitoring my health. More than I monitor yours, as you dangle. Geez.”

He turned back to me. “As I was saying, Karen’s on, and you’ve got the monitor to page Stark Industries if something goes wrong, right?”

I grinned at him and held up the monitor. “Yep.”

He nodded. “Ok, just keep an eye on me. Everything feels fine, but you never know.”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve gotten more sensible in your old age, Parker.”

I could see him grin at me under the mask. “Yeah, we’ll see how you feel about that when you see how I take off from the building to impress ANDREW, because screw Leland, am I right?”

Vince chortled from the center of the roof, “Absolutely, Parker!” He pulled his arms around himself even tighter. Leland just shook his head in disgust, and Andrew smiled.

Parker went to the North side and stepped up on the ledge. He turned his face us, raised his arms up, and then said, “Bye. I’ll be back.” He fell backwards in what I knew was supposed to be a flashy fall. 

Vince said “JESUS! Is he ok?”

I stepped up to the ledge and peered down. “Come here, Andrew. He’s fine.” I pointed at Parker, who had already gracefully caught himself on the other building and was starting to pivot to the other building.

“Wicked!”

I looked over at Leland. “Leland, you asshole, you wanna see too?”

“I’m not sure I want a gay guy carrying me.” 

Vince managed to unfreeze himself enough to get over to his son to smack the back of his head. “What the hell, Leland? You’re fourteen, he’s like 25. He’s not interested in you, and he’s doing you and your brother a favor. For Chrissake.”

Leland began sulking even harder. Parker landed on his feet beside me just then.

“You ok, Parker?” I asked.

“Yeah, fine. Suit’s great, the web’s are fine.” He turned to Andrew. “You ready?”

“Yeah!”

“Ok, just hop on my back. I’ll catch you, and then we’ll swing for a bit.”

“Can you not fall backwards with my son this time, Parker?” Vince yelled. 

“Well, it’s more fun that way, but sure, Mr. Hogan.”

He got himself and Andrew situated. “You ready, Andrew?”

Andrew gamely nodded. Parker turned to me. “Same path, Happy.” I gave him a thumbs-up. Parker stepped up to the ledge, acting as if Andrew’s extra weight meant nothing to him, and fell forward. 

I peered back down again. He landed on the building again and hung for a minute I could see him turn his head, probably to check to see if Andrew was doing ok. Everything seemed to be fine and he swung to the other building and swung back to my rooftop, and landed with Andrew, safely.

Vince managed to unfreeze again to go talk to Andrew. “Buddy? How was that? You ok?”

“It was so fucking COOL, Dad!” Vince laughed and pulled him for an awkward dad-teenager hug. Only the very tops of their shoulders touched, but the point was there.

“How did it go, Parker?” I asked.

He rocked his hand a little. “Andrew was fine. It was all good, but my air supply shorted out for a second. Probably a weird glitch. Karen ran a diagnostic and didn’t find anything.”

I turned to look at Leland and then looked back at Parker. “Maybe give it a rest for tonight. Leland’s being a jerk anyway.”

He leaned in closer and spoke quietly to me. “He’s also a 14-year old kid who’s in the closet, Happy, and with a dad who owns a boxing gym and a twin brother who is as straight as a ruler. He kind of is going to be a jerk for a while, it’s ok.”

I looked back to Leland and then quirked an eyebrow. “You sure?”

“Yeah.” He yelled at Leland. “Quit being an asshole, and let’s do this.”

“Fine. You won’t dangle me will you?”

“Not if you take the assholishness down by like 20%.” He got Leland arranged and stepped forward to the ledge.

“Same path, Parker?”

“Same path.”

He did another fall off the ledge, did another landing and pivoted again. He managed to swing himself and Leland back to the roof. He fell to his knees though and immediately clawed off his mask and started gasping for air. 

I ran to them. “Leland, you ok?” I was proud of myself for checking on my blood first, even though I wanted nothing more than to pat Parker down and check on him.

He nodded, with his eyes wide-open. “I think he started having trouble at the last building. Is he ok?”

I knelt down by Parker and rubbed his back in circles. “You ok?”

He gasped and nodded. “Sorry about that, Leland.” He turned to me. “My air supply cut out again.”

I couldn’t stop myself. “Fuck, Parker. I told you not to go back out again. You could have fucking blacked-out and fallen.”

He grabbed my hand and stared at my eyes. “That didn’t happen. I’m fine. Take a breath.”

“Jesus Christ, I’m not taking a fucking breath, Peter! You could have died.”

“You just called me Peter,” he said, looking surprised.

“Oh fuck you, I did not.”

Vince broke in, “Happy, yes, you did. Kids you both heard him, right?” The twins nodded. “Leland, you ok?”

“Yeah.”

“Good. Grab your stuff, we’re going home before your uncle kills Parker. Leland, you lose your phone privileges for a month if you tell your mom about Parker having trouble, capisce?”

“Yeah.”

Vince leaned into me and spoke quietly. “If I were you Happy, I’d choose fucking him rather than fighting him tonight, but you do you.” He looked towards Parker. “See you at poker on Friday. If the big guy gives you too much trouble, come over and eat lunch with us tomorrow. Mercy would love to feed you.

“Come on, boys.” Andrew had already pushed the elevator button and all three shuffled in, leaving us on the rooftop.

Parker moved to his feet. His eyes were big and his face was pale. His hair was sweaty from the mask, which was something I didn’t normally see.

“Why are you all sweaty?”

He sighed. “The air conditioning cut out too. I know I shouldn’t have gone back out. I really do. But I didn’t want to leave Leland out.”

“And because you couldn’t disappoint the mouthy jerk, who I swear called you a faggot underneath his breath when you took his brother swinging, you nearly fucking DIED.” I was pointing my finger at him, and I was about to really lose it.

“He’s fourteen. It’s a shitty age, and right now, he’s a shitty person, but you can’t be shitty back.”

“Leave the kid out of it, Parker. You NEARLY DIED.”

“Karen tossed the last web for me, and the suit increased the lumbar pressure, which forced me to swing. The fail-safes worked. I’m ok.”

“But you could not have BEEN, and I WOULD HAVE LOST YOU!”

He took a look at me and rested his hand on my arm. “Come on inside. It’s windy out here, and you can yell at me just as easily while I’m cooking dinner for us. What were you making?”

“I’m not FINISHED.”

He pushed the button on the elevator. “I didn’t say you were. I just said you could yell at me while you were warm. What were you making?”

We stepped into the elevator, both of our backs to the back of the elevator. I turned to look at him. I was so angry at him that I was almost shaking. I slid my eyes over to him, as I moved over the corner, the furthest away from him that I could get. “Spaghetti.”

“I can do that.” 

We got to my floor, and he entered the numbers into the keypad by my door to get entry. Vince and Mercy were the only other people who know the code. Parker could have died, and the code would have died in his brain with him, and then there would have only been three people who knew that code, not four. I started to see red again.

“Parker,” I began as I entered. 

He held a hand up. “Hang on, I’m going to the guest room to change out of this. You go get changed too. You might as well be comfy when you yell at me.”

“Fuck--”

“Hold that thought, I’ll be back.”

He was literally going to be the death of me. He went to the guest bedroom, and I went to my room. Fuck it, he wanted me to be comfy, well, I was going to go all out. I put on pajama pants and an old Stark Industries Company Picnic t-shirt from 2003. Give myself plenty of room to breathe when I yelled the apartment down.

I went out to the kitchen and opened a bottle of wine. Fuck him if he thought I was going to yell at him stone-cold sober. He came out of the guest bedroom in jeans and a black v-neck sweater. He looked edible, and I wanted nothing more than to pin him down and show him who he belonged to, and why he couldn’t be foolish with his life.

I drank the whole glass of wine down in one gulp.

“Steady there. You haven’t eaten anything yet, Happy.”

I sat down at the bar-stool by the island and rested my head in my hands. “You. Could. Have. Died. And. I’m. Not. Ok. With. That.”

He started pulling the correct skillet and pans out of the cupboard. Parker knew where all of my cooking supplies were, and that knowledge could have also have died with him.

“If it makes you feel better, I don’t want to die either. I’ll be yelling at the techs tomorrow and I’ll figure out what went wrong. The webs worked ok.”

I flung my hands out. “Parker! I swear to God, it’s like talking to Tony, how bull-headed he was, always sure that he was right. You weren’t RIGHT!”

He put down the knife that he was using to chop an onion and looked thoughtful. “I’ve been thinking --”

“Well, THAT would be a refreshing change.”

He snorted. “Tony didn’t die because his suit didn’t work, Happy. He died because he really did think he was responsible for everything. He should have tossed that glove to Captain Marvel. She was the only one of us who had enough power to handle it. Not Tony. He died because he thought he was the best, and he wasn’t. Not on that field.”

I stared at him. “Well, that’s a great mental leap. That has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with anything that I’m talking to you about.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I know, but it clears up stuff for me. Anyway --”

He came around the island to my side. I turned my stool to face him, and he confidently invaded my personal space, coming in between my spread legs, then cupped my face and dipped his face towards mine, giving me just a second to pull away. When I didn’t, he delicately touched his lips to mine. This was one of those first kisses that was sweet and a surprise.

I was the one, I think, to growl deep in my throat. I possessively put my hands on his ass and snugged him closer to me. I half stood up from the stool, to make myself just a little taller and bent my head down to deepen the kiss. He groaned in his throat just a little and twined his arms around my neck.

It was a good first kiss, as kisses go.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not "Far From Home" compliant, and I'll fight anyone who says that "Blip" is better than "Snap :-)

He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against mine. For a minute, we just stayed like that, breathing each other’s air.

“Why--” my voice was rough and I cleared my throat, “Why did you do that, Parker?”

He smiled at me and gave me another quick kiss. “Because I’ve been wanting to for a long, long time, and most of the reason you’re going to spend the next hour bitching at me is because you’re worried, and worry makes you angry, and you’re worried about me, so I thought you wouldn’t mind THAT much.”

I took a breath to speak, then caught it. There was a lot going on in what he just said. “No -- no, I don’t mind, but --”

He caught my hand and held it, then brought it up to his mouth and kissed it. “For a couple of years there, there was the fear that if I kissed you, you were going to throw a right hook at me.”

My mind grabbed at that, since nothing else was making sense, and Parker was speaking a foreign language. “You really need to spend more time at the gym with Vince. You could learn to be better at blocking.”

He grinned at me. “I think I could probably block you now, but that’s not the point. I’m not sure that blocking a punch is really what I want to do right after a first kiss, you know? So there’s that.” He moved back to the other side of the island and resumed chopping his onion.

I sat back down in my stool and put my head back in my hands. My head was swimming, but one glass of wine shouldn’t do that. I thought for a minute.

Parker went to my canned goods cabinet and started poking. “What are you looking for?”

“Spaghetti sauce.”

“I was actually going to make you homemade, Parker.”

He looked at me. “Sure, I could do that, if you want. Or we could make dinner quickly, eat quickly, and then resume making out. Which one?” 

We sat there for a moment, looking at each other. He started to look a little unsure of himself, and I realized that he was probably as unsteady on his footing here as I was. He was just more willing to fling himself off of buildings on a day-to-day basis than I was. If we had waited for me to make the first move, Parker may have been in his fifties himself. I decided to be just a little brave myself.

I stood up and moved towards him, slowly, trying not to spook him. I lifted my hands to hold his waist. I gave him a couple of seconds to back away from me, and when he didn’t, I held him. My hands covered a surprisingly large amount of him, and I took a moment to marvel at our size difference once again.

He moved a little towards me, and I did a little shuffle towards him and ducked my head into his hair. “Or we can just order pizza and move to the making out even earlier.”

He gave a relieved chuckle. “I just chopped an onion for you, Happy.”

“I have more onions. It’ll be fine.” We stood there looking at each other, grinning like fools. I’d forgotten how sweet it was, when the two of you aren’t used to the other person’s dance, and every move, every touch had to be choreographed and then telegraphed to the other person. I didn’t really want to rush this stage. It’s a good stage. I didn’t know what Parker was thinking the end result of this evening would be, but I kind of hoped it wouldn’t be sex, but just getting to know to each other, in this way.

If he really wanted sex though, I could probably be convinced. I smiled a little bigger to myself. I bent down and kissed him, lightly. 

“Throw the onion in the trash. I’m going to go change.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You just changed.”

“Parker, when you said get comfy, I really thought you meant comfy, not ‘slip into something more comfortable’ comfy.”

“You look fine,” he protested.

“No, YOU look fine. I look like I’ve had the flu for three days, and I’m not going into this evening looking like this.” I kissed his forehead. “I’ll be back.

He bit his lip. “Ok.”

I made my way back to my bedroom without tripping over anything with nerves. I gave myself a mental gold star for that. I went over and looked at myself in the mirror. It would have really been helpful if I could have showered before this. The wind on the roof had messed my hair up, and I wasn’t sure I could get it to lay it to lay flat. I could do him a favor and brush my teeth though.

I went into the master bath and did just that. I debated about giving myself a fresh shave, but then decided he’d start to get worried about what I was thinking if I took too long. I reapplied deodorant, and then thought about putting on cologne. But when you did that fresh, you could taste the cologne’s alcohol wherever you put it on, and that had kind of a bitter bite to it, and honestly, I wanted him to be able to kiss me wherever he wanted without me tasting bad.

I went and stood in front of my closet. I was never going to look as good as him, but I wanted to look good FOR him. I wanted him to be able to see whatever it was he might be seeing in me.

I changed boxers, just in case, and settled on a tan sweater and black jeans and looked at myself again. I looked ok and I also noticed that I looked really happy. It was going to have to do. I thought about putting shoes on, but I kind of hoped that I’d just have to take them back off again and settled on socks. Because feet are weird, you know. I pulled them on and went back out to the living room.

Parker was perched nervously on the sofa, with his elbows on his knees. As soon as he heard the door open, he turned. He smiled when he saw me. “You look handsome.”

I sat down next to him. “Not as good as you. Let’s face it, Parker, you’re hot.”

He shook his head.

“Mmm-hmmm. Yes, you are.” I put my arm around him, and he jumped a little before he nestled into my side. “This ok?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m -- I’m just nervous. That’s all.”  
I looked into his eyes and smiled at him. “It’s ok. I’m nervous here too. We’ll just do the best we can. If I do something that makes you feel weird --”

“You won’t.”

I repeated myself, “If I do something that makes you feel weird, you tell me to stop, and I will, right away, without a question. I’ll do the same thing for you. Deal?”

“Deal.” 

I leaned back against the sofa - which fortunately for making-out purposes, even though it hadn’t been used for that yet - was big. I pulled him gently back towards me, so that I ended up backed into the corner, and he was tucked into my side, with his chest sort of facing mine. He pulled his legs up on the sofa and curled them around behind himself.

I grabbed his hand that was free and started gently toying with his fingers, tangling mine with his, letting go, then playing with each individual finger. We were both likely to freak out at the slightest thing, and stroking a hand seemed about as low on the totem-pole of ‘scary things’ as I could get. 

I spoke softly. “You look cozy.”

He smiled at me and played back with my hand too. “I like being close to you.”

I nuzzled into his hair. “I like being close to you too. Hang on.”

I pushed him up a little, so that I could get to the remote on the coffee table. I dimmed the lights by 50%. “Sorry. I want to be able to see you, but I didn’t really want the overhead light shining in my eyes.”

He ventured a small joke. “So you’re fairly certain, at some point, you’re going to be on your back tonight?”

I chuckled and started playing with his fingers again. “Honey, I’ll even play the Barry White music for you.”

He looked at me and slowly moved in again. I met him half-way, parting my mouth for him. Parker gently licked my lips, and I licked back at him. Again, I wasn’t trying to spook him, but I really did want to kiss him, fast and slow, hard and soft. This night might be all slow and soft, and the fast and hard might wait until we were both feeling a little more confident, but that was ok. Right now, at this moment, I felt like we had all the time in the world.

All of my senses were turned up. I was hyper-conscious of everything. I could hear his breathing and his clothes rustling as he moved. He had moved up a little bit and was resting more of his weight on my chest as he kissed me, which was just perfect as far as I was concerned. My one hand was still playing with his. My other hand was on his back, and I was very conscious of not moving it underneath his sweater to feel his skin until I thought he was a little more comfortable, but I was stroking his back and rubbing it in slow circles.

Parker got a little adventurous and nipped at my lower lip gently. I was surprised by my moan, but I did moan, and I could feel his lips smile against mine. He pulled away the tiniest bit, “You like that?”

“Mmm-hmm.” I moved forward and caught his lips again. 

He moved back away again. “You brushed your teeth. You want me to go brush mine?”

I should have known he was a talker. I smiled at him. “You’re fine. You taste wonderful, delightful, splendid. Relax, Parker, it’s all ok.”

“Ok.” He leaned down and kissed me again. He sat back up again, a little. I sighed.

“What Parker? Is there anything I can do that would make you feel more comfortable?”

“No, I was just going to say it’s weird kissing someone with a beard.” My goatee wasn’t much of a beard, but ok.

I looked at him strangely. “Tony had a beard…”

He looked back at me strangely too. “Yeah, so?”

“Parker…This is not really something that we need to get into tonight, ok?” I moved back to him, hoping that I could distract enough from whatever memories he was going to have now.

“Happy --” he put a hand on my chest. Well, fuck. Just when things were getting good. I just hoped that we weren’t going to get so off-track tonight that we never got back on. I’m not saying I deserve Parker, but I did deserve to be happy, and right now, I was pretty sure he was going to be what made me happy, if I just didn’t fuck this up.

l leaned my forehead on his. “What?”

He looked at me, searched my eyes. He pulled back and laughed. “Oh my God! You too!”

Well, this night was just getting better and better. “Why are you laughing, Parker?” I could hear that my voice was irritated, but I didn’t know how to stop it. I reached behind me to grab a throw pillow and held it in my lap. I knew it was just a small barrier, and I didn’t want to barricade myself from him, but I didn’t want to have my heart broken either. Not tonight.

“You think I slept with Tony, oh my God!”

Wait, what? “Well, yeah… I mean, it’s kind of obvious.”

He shook his head. “No, it’s not. You’ve somehow added 2 and 2 and ended up with 54, Happy.

I dropped the pillow. Maybe I didn’t need the barrier after all. “So you didn’t?”

“No! And maybe you could tell Rhodey that too, because he kept warning me about Tony, while Tony was still alive. ‘Look kid, Tony doesn’t always make the best decisions, but I know you’re smart. I’ll talk to him, ok? --’ Dude, what do you think you’re talking to him about???

“And Mr. Rogers, who told me at Mr. Stark’s funeral, that he knew I was just as upset as Ms. Potts, but that he knew I was a ‘good American, and good Americans let the women grieve,’ What does that even MEAN? I mean, really? Was I a Communist if I felt bad that Tony died?”

My heart was starting to feel lighter. “I’ve heard the kids today have doubts about the capitalist society, so maybe?” I smiled at him.

He grinned back and grabbed my hand. He started to play with it again, and I stroked his hand back. “Not a Communist, but it’s ok if you are. I’d understand. And for the record, no. Tony tried to kiss me once, but yeah, no.”

“Yeah, no? Really? You turned him down?”

He angled his body so that he could kiss me again. I took a moment to enjoy him before he spoke again. “Yeah. I mean, think about it, Happy. I was fifteen! I had posters of him and Iron Man on the walls of my bedroom. Who did you have a crush on when you were a kid?”

“Now we’re talking about past loves?”

“I’m serious. Who did you have posters of on the wall when you were a kid?”

I shrugged. “I dunno about when I was fifteen. I had posters of Lynda Carter on the wall when I was young. She was hot.”

“Oh, the woman who played, what was it, Wonder Woman?” I nodded.

“Yeah, I’m really like 95% gay, so I don’t quite get that, but I can see it, I guess.” I snorted and he giggled. “So what would you have done at the age of fifteen if Lynda Carter showed up in your apartment and told you were going to Berlin to have a fight with the other Avengers?”

“I would have said that I’m not a super-hero and also would you make out with me?” I stroked up his arm a bit.

“I said the first part! I really did, but nooo, before I knew it, I was on a private jet, and it was weeeeeiiiirrrd.”

“Yeah, I can see that, I guess.”

“Right? And then he was giving me suits, and putting in babysitter protocols in those suits, and then you were like my watcher, and you really didn’t want to be doing that, and it was all… a lot. It was a lot. I was in high school, and I probably really should have been doing high school things, not fighting Avengers.”

“Did he upset you when he tried to kiss you?” Now I was getting mad at a dead man.

He shook his head. “I didn’t actually figure it out until later. We were standing someplace and he moved toward me, and I thought… Well, I don’t remember what I thought, but I moved away, and then he kind of covered for himself. You know, when you go to kiss someone and they don’t go to kiss you back?”

I nodded. “When did he do this?”

“Some time when we were talking. It doesn’t really matter, but I think HE had things built up in HIS head. My letter -- he said at some part, ‘Peter, I wish that our lives had been more in synch and I was younger or you were older, because we could have had something great. I love you.’”

“Yeah, that seems pretty obvious, he did feel that way.” I pulled my hand away.

He peered at me. “Are you jealous?”

“No.”

“I think you are.”

I shook my head. “Nope.”

“Ok, Happy, whatever. But you know what my first thought was?”

“No, what?”

“Happy. I know the after-life is real now. AND THE CONVERSATION IS GOING TO BE REALLY AWKWARD WHEN I GET THERE.”

He looked so funny that I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “The ages will probably synch up then. You two will be fine.”

He shook his head. “You’re not getting it. No one gets it. But here is the truth, and don’t interrupt me --”

“Parker, it’s fine --”

“What did I just say? Don’t interrupt me.” He had a fierce look on his face, and he was so cute that I sat up a little and gave a kiss-peck to his nose.

“Sorry. I’ll be good. Go on.”

“Look, Tony was brilliant and rich and smart and funny. And he was A LOT. Like a lot, a lot. I’m the guy who is the friendly neighborhood superhero. I get cats out of trees and help old ladies cross the street. And he was on my wall, and then he was in my life, and you know what? It was A LOT.

“It’s fun to get to meet your heroes, and I love him, and I always will. But I was never IN LOVE with him. As far as I could tell, he was always with Ms. Potts, and she knew how to live his life. I didn’t. And I know that. I knew that. Aunt May took the time to teach me which fork to use when, but that was enough for me to know that I didn’t want to eat in fancy restaurants --”

“You do realize that I will take you to restaurants with both a salad fork and a dinner fork, right?”

He smiled. “I can handle that, and stop interrupting. You get my point, anyway. And… I wasn’t that attracted to him anyway.”

I tilted my head to one side. “Really? He’s dead. You don’t have to bullshit me on that one, Parker.”

He smiled fondly at me, then he grabbed my face gently with both hands. “I had a crush on YOU back then.”

I know I had a look of disbelief on my face. “You did not.”

“I did.”

“I wasn’t all that nice to you, Parker.”

He tilted forward a bit and whispered in my ear. “I like it when I’m ordered around. Just a little.”

I couldn’t help it, I shivered. I could feel my cock pulse, and I fought not to rub it against him. “Yeah?”

He moved his face close to mine and nodded so that I could feel his skin rub against mine. He needed a shave too. “Yeah. You know what else?”

“No?”

“You are so fucking hot, Happy. I’ve wanted you as long as I’ve known you. I have come thinking about you so many times.”

Oh, fuck it. I pushed him gently down on his back, watching his face for any sign of distress. I moved myself over him, holding most of my weight off of him, but moving my cock against his hip, enough for him to feel me. “You have not,” I said, but I was smiling at him. 

His eyes, which had fallen shut, opened. “Oh, I have. When I watch porn, I’m watching porn with guys that look like you.”

“Jesus God,” I gasped. I dropped most of my weight on him - he was strong enough to be ok - and rutted against him. His hips snapped back against mine. I mouthed at his neck, hungrily. “You watch porn?” 

He broke into a fit of laughter. “I’m a guy. Yeah, I watch porn.” He laughed more then settled down. “Look, full disclosure. Your main competition here is a guy that I picked up in a bar a year ago who had some premature ejaculation issues and Liam the Demon from _Asscrack III: The Revenge._ ”

I lifted myself up a little. “I’m the first guy?”

“Other than dude from the bar who came before he got his underwear off, yeah. It’s been a strange couple of years, you know?”

“Yeah, it has. Liam the Demon?”

“I think it’s meant to rhyme, and yeah, I know it doesn’t.” 

He returned the favor to my neck and bit it experimentally. “Mmmm, that feels good. I like that.”

“Yeah?” His voice was getting raspier. I was starting to hear Parker’s turned-on voice, and it was… really hot. “Liam has stamina going for him.”

I pulled away a little bit to get back to Parker’s mouth so I could kiss him. We kissed for a couple of minutes. I had slid a little of the way off of Parker. Both so he could breathe and so that he could move a little better. My back was to the back of the sofa. I broke the kiss, and started peppering his face with small kisses. His cheeks, his chin, his nose, his eyelids. His hands were underneath my sweater, stroking and rubbing. “Parker, the first time we have sex, I’m going to be so turned-on that stamina will not be on my side.”

He moaned and turned his body more to mine. I could feel his cock pressed against my leg. I nuzzled at his neck. “This sounds like this’ll be your first time.”

“Uh-huh.” His voice had turned dreamy. 

I grabbed at his hips and stilled them. I rested my forehead against his. He woke up a bit.

“What, Happy? Did I do something?”

“Shhh-shhh, no, Parker, you’re fine. But if this is going to be your first, we should be… intentional about it.”

“What?”

“I just mean, if we want to have sex tonight, that’s fine, that’s wonderful, and I’m fully on board with that, and we’ll move this to the bedroom, and I meant what I said, my stamina will be shit, but I’ll make sure that everything is as good for you as I can possibly make it.” He moaned, and my hands on his hips weren’t enough to still him. I leaned forward and kissed him gently and smiled against his lips.

“But there’s nothing wrong with this stage either, you know. The wanting stage, the kissing and making out stage, the knowing you’re not going to have sex tonight, but you’re warm and cozy with me, and we’re making out, and getting to know each other this way, instead of the way we’ve always been with each other. It’s a good place too.

“I’ve kind of rushed passed this stage before, and then I missed it when it was gone, a little bit. Because then everything always goes to sex, and there’s something nice, something sweet about making out for hours, you know. It’s up to you.”

He looked at me. “You’d have sex with me, right? This isn’t about you not wanting to have sex? Or not wanting me?”

I chuckled and pressed my own erection against him. “I will gladly have sex with you tonight, and then I’ll wake up tomorrow and want morning sex just to see you in the sunlight.”

He grinned. “I did mean what I said about having to pick up MJ from the airport. It’d have to be like 5am sex.”

“A great time to have sex. You can just shake me if I fall asleep.” I smiled at him. “I was hoping you’d spend the night, no matter what. Are you going back to your Aunt’s?”

“If you don’t mind me getting up early, I’ll stay. Am I sleeping in the guest room if we don’t have sex?”

“Parker! I’m not going to make you sleep in the guest room, for fuck’s sake. No, if we decide to keep tonight low-key, we go to bed in boxers and t-shirts and we snuggle.”

“You’ll snuggle with me?” He smiled.

I kissed the side of his face. “Yes, I like to snuggle. I actually just really like being close to people.”

“You’re not a toucher, Happy.”

“Not random people, that I don’t know, yeah. But if I’m dating you… you’re going to think I’m clingy.”

“Promises, promises.” He looked at me. “You won’t mind if we don’t have sex tonight?”

“Nope, like I said, this stage is nice too.” I stroked up his arm again.

“Can we just make-out some more?”

“Absolutely,” I said, and fell back into him.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

We’d managed about an hour of making out, before we were both so strung-out that we decided that we needed to stop and eat dinner before things went farther than we really wanted them to, tonight. I lay with him for a bit as we caught our breath, and then excused myself and went to the bathroom and took care of the issue. I thought of him the whole time.

I think, I hope, for his sake, that he did the same thing while I was gone. I think he did, because he was calmer and less jittery when I came out. We ordered a pizza - he needed to eat, or he was going to be in a mood later - and mooned over each other the whole dinner. Seriously our conversation would have been gag-inducing to anyone else, ‘You’re so sweet,’ ‘No, you’re sweeter,’ but it was perfect for us tonight. I played footsie with him under the table, just to watch him smile.

We got ready for bed, both of us wearing boxers and tees. He’d had to borrow one of my tees, and it was hanging on him and cute. We had settled into big spoon and little spoon, and I kissed his neck and told him that he looked cute in my t-shirt.

He chuckled and tangled his fingers with mine where they laid on his stomach. “Will you go to lunch with me tomorrow?”

“Sure, where at?”

“I don’t know. I’ll text you. It’s wherever MJ and her girlfriend wants to go. Ned and Lauren will be joining us too.”

“So… It’s like a triple date?”

“Yep.” He scooched back a little and smiled up at me.

“Your friends going be up to going to lunch with a guy in his fifties?”

He rolled his eyes. “What do you think Ned and I talk about? He’ll be relieved this part of it is over. And yeah, as long as you don’t bitch about ‘in my day, the price of a hamburger was a nickel,’ it’ll be fine.”

“How old do you think I am, Parker? Hamburgers were never a nickel in my day.”

“Whatever you say, Happy.”

We snuggled for another ten minutes or so. I had moved my leg in between his two, which he accepted happily, and I was just enjoying being close to him. His breaths were starting to space out, and I tried to stay as still as I could to let him go to sleep. He was going to be waking up early.

I think he had just teetered over the edge into sleep, when he shook himself awake. “Happy, do you know why I kissed you tonight?”

“Because I’m dashingly handsome and irresistible?”

“That and because you called me Peter, earlier.”

“It is your name, Parker.”

He grabbed my hand again. “No, because I saw it in the red room. When you called me Peter, it was time to kiss you. It wouldn’t be all jumbled, it’d be ok.”

I propped myself up on my elbow quickly. “What?”

But he’d fallen back asleep. I looked at him for a long moment. He looked peaceful and relaxed in his sleep.

I decided to let him rest. There’d be time later.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had this estimated at 12 chapters. Yeah, it's going to be longer than that... Thanks for your patience.

I think I drifted off around 11 or so. I woke up at 2am when a hand connected with my jaw. Hard. I snapped awake ready to fight an intruder, only to see Parker crying out and twisting in his sleep.

I did know enough not to try to touch him when he was this upset in his sleep - I didn’t want to make him feel cornered, so I spoke to him loudly. “Parker. Parker. Wake up for me, ok? Time to wake up.”

He twisted again and connected with my shoulder. “Ouch! Parker, come on honey, time to wake up. Peter, you’re safe.”

A combination of his hand hitting me and me talking to him seemed to wake him up. He looked up at me, and started crying. 

I laid as close to him as I could and rubbed his back. “You ok?”

He snuffled. “Did I hit you? I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m fine, Parker.”

He snuffled some more. “I ruined our night.”

“You did not. It’s all fine.”

“Did I hurt you?”

“You hit my shoulder.” Lying was the better part of valor here - my shoulder was fine - but he didn’t need to know about smacking me in the face. “It’s all fine. Just breathe, ok? Can you feel me breathing? Just breathe with me, ok?”

He was silent for a minute, then spoke. “You said that to me the night that I fell through the floor.”

I thought for a minute. Maybe I’d said that when I was trying to calm him down when the meds hit him weird, I didn’t know. “Maybe I did. I don’t know, honey. It’s been awhile.”

“You called me honey.” His voice sounded surprised.

He also sounded calmer. I smiled and kissed his forehead. “Honey, sweetheart, beautiful, handsome, schmoopie-pie - take your pick. I’ll figure out original nicknames for you later. For now, you’ll have to take the old stand-bys.”

“Can I call you honey or beautiful?”

“Nope.” He snickered. 

I pulled back so that he could see me. “Seriously, you can call me what you want. It’s fine.” He smiled at me softly. “What did you dream about, honey?”

He shook his head. “It’s fuzzy now. It was about the Snap, I think.”

“You snapping out or the period before you snapped back in?”

He pulled away and sat up a little bit. I rolled towards him and propped myself up on one elbow. “If it’s like all the other nightmares, it’s the period I was gone?”

“How many times do you have nightmares, Parker?”

“Enough.” He scrubbed at his face with his hand.

“You think you can get back to sleep?”

He dropped his hand and stared at me. “You’re just going to let me go back to sleep without poking at me about the dream? I feel like I don’t even know you now, Happy.”

I laughed and rolled on my back. “Dearest-heart, Schmoopie-pie, oh, we’ll be talking all about this tonight,” I glanced over at the clock, “but you’ve got like two and a half hours to sleep before you have to wake up and drive to the airport. You need to sleep if you can. Come on, lay back down.”

He laid next to me. “Can I rest on you?”

“Yes, Trader Joe’s-of-my-heart. Parker, we’re in bed together and I told you last night that I’m ok snuggling, and you had a bad night. You don’t really have to ask.”

He nestled into my side and rested his head on my chest. It felt nice. “Still learning here, Happy.”

“I know. It’s ok.” I could smell him now that he was closer to me and that I was less worried. He was sweaty and it wasn’t clean male sweat from being overheated under the blankets, it was fear sweat. I rested my chin in his hair and started stroking his back. “We’re also going to talk about you being stupid last night. You can make out with me all you want, Parker, but I’m still going to remember you being stupid.”

He yawned. “I would expect no less.” He moved closer so that his body was half-way on my chest.

“Make yourself at home, Parker.”

“I want to hear your heartbeat. Is that ok?”

My arms involuntarily tightened on him. “Yeah, it’s ok. Go ahead and lay on me if you need to.” I also tugged his arm and put it underneath my t-shirt. “It might be easier for you to feel it. It’s ok.”

I think I fell back to sleep before he did.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

I woke up way too early to the sounds of water running in the master bath. I lay in the warmth of the bed for a little bit, trying to wake up some. It was nice to hear the sounds of another human in my living space, a human that I had slept with the night before, now doing human things in the bathroom, which apparently included singing off-key.

Three or four minutes after I woke up, he came back into the bedroom trying to move quietly. “It’s ok, Parker, I’m awake.” I sat up against the headboard and rubbed my eyes.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you, Happy.”

“It’s ok. I would have wanted you to wake me up before you left, anyway.”

He smiled at me brightly. He came over to the bed, and kissed me.

“Mmm. I like waking up with you, Parker.”

He groaned and kissed me again, deeper. He sat down on the bed by me. I let him kiss me for a couple of minutes before I broke it off. “As much fun as this is, you’ve got to leave soon. How are you getting back to your aunt’s?”

“I’m taking a Lyft back.”

“You are not. Give me five and I’ll drive you.”

“Happy, it’s 5:30, go back to sleep and I’ll see you at lunch.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “The kind of people driving ride-shares this early are not the kind of people that I’m going to let a date of mine ride with. Give me a minute.” I snagged a t-shirt and jeans out of a dresser. I went into the bathroom to change.

He called through the door. “You’re being very gallant, Happy!”

“I know, right? Just wait until I take you to dinner at a place with salad forks.”

I heard him laugh. “You know I’m Spider-man, right? I’m pretty sure I can take a ride-share driver in the early morning if I had to.”

I opened the door. “That’s not really the point, Parker. I’m being nice because I want to be nice to you.” He smiled dopily up at me. I patted his behind and winked at him. “Besides, you have a really cute ass. I’ll drive that ass all over midtown, you know.”

He leaned up on his toes and kissed me like he meant it. I kissed him back like I meant it too, because I really did. We made-out for a couple of minutes and I was about ready to back him into the bed so that we could be reclining for this, when he backed away. “I don’t want to, but we’ve got to get going so I can pick up May’s Volvo.”

I took a deep breath and shook my head a little to clear it. “Yeah, ok. Are you going out with MJ and her girlfriend tonight?”

“Probably. I haven’t seen her and Christabel for months.”

I looked at him. “Christabel?”

“She’s British. I know, strange name. She’s kind of strange too, but whatever, she makes MJ happy. Anyway, with the time difference, I’ll probably go out to dinner with them and be done by 9. Is that too late to come over here?”

“No, of course not. I don’t turn into a pumpkin at 8:30 and I’d like to see you. Bring take-out over, you’re perfectly capable of eating two meals. Besides, so much talking to do tonight, Parker, about dreams and malfunctioning suits.”

“Mmm, great.” We walked out of the door.

When we arrived at his apartment building, I got out of the car too. He looked at me funny. “I’m walking you upstairs to your door too. Still part of me being nice. Who the hell have you dated before that they haven’t done this?”

We started up to the lobby’s doorway. “I haven’t really dated. I mean, if you don’t count school dances and stuff.”

“What? Why not?” We got into the elevator and I stared at him as if he’d grown another head.

He ducked over and kissed the corner of my mouth. “We’ll talk tonight.”

“Hell, yeah, we will.” He grinned at me.

I walked with him to his doorway. I really was going to just kiss him and watch him go in inside. I didn’t want to disturb May by being in her apartment when she was sleeping and not expecting me. Then the door opened just as we got there.

“Hey, Peter, honey. Happy, nice to see you, come on in. I’ve got coffee waiting.” I looked at Parker. He just raised his eyebrows at me.

May herded to me to the kitchen. “Peter, go ahead and get changed. The keys are on the side-table. Happy and I are going to have a talk.”

I sat down at the kitchen table. “Are we?” Peter stood uncertainly behind his aunt.

She plunked a coffee-mug in front of me. “There’s sugar on the table. Let me grab the half and half.” She turned and found that Parker was in her way to get to the fridge. “Peter, it’s fine. Go get changed. Happy and I are just going to have coffee. Move, so I can get the cream.”

“Okay.” He looked at me. “I’ll come out and say good-bye in a minute.”

I nodded slowly at him. He left to go to his room. “May, did he forget to text you that he wasn’t coming home? I’m sorry if you were worried.”

She smiled. “No, he texted that he was staying at your apartment. Which is fine. I figured one of two things was going to happen this morning. One was, he was going to come upstairs alone, and go get dressed and pick up the car and it would have been a normal day. I would have had some coffee and gone back to bed. That would have been if you had just let him crash there overnight.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The other one was what happened, with you walking him up and the two of you beaming at each other. I don’t think that you just let him crash in the guest room. So we get to have a chat.”

“Ah. Good.” I fidgeted a little in my seat.

Parker came out and looked between the two of us. “Everything ok?”

May looked at me. “Everything’s fine, Parker. Your aunt and I are just talking.” 

He bit his lip. “You should have just let me out on the street.”

I caught his hand. I wasn’t trying to hurt Parker, I wanted to be with him and be proud of it. I might as well let May see that. It might make her feel better, in some strange way. “That wasn’t going to happen, honey. I’m always going to walk you to your door. Go pick up MJ and her girlfriend.”

He looked at his aunt and then looked at me. He nodded. “Ok, text me when you’re going home?”

“Sure.”

May made shooing motions with her hands. “Go. Traffic will be easy, but they’ll be landing soon. It’s all fine.” He bent down and kissed her on her hair.

“Uh-huh.” He looked over his shoulder as he left. I waved at him to reassure him. 

The door clicked behind him as he left. I looked at May, she looked at me. She finally broke into a smile. “I’m really not worried about this, you know. It’s been coming for awhile. I just - he’s my kid, Happy.”

I relaxed a little. “I know. I’m not going to hurt him.”

“Oh, you can’t promise me that, don’t even try. I loved Ben terribly, and he died, and that hurt me. You can’t promise me or him that you won’t ever hurt him.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. But I do… care for him. I want him to be happy. If that includes, for right now, dating me, I’m ok with that.”

She laughed, lightly. “Did you have safe sex last night?”

Well then. I thought about how to approach this particular question and then figured it out. “I like to think we’re friends, May.”

“Sure. Friends where one of us dating the other one’s kid, sure.”

“Yeah, friends like that. Look, though, some things are private even between friends. I’m extending to Parker the same courtesy that I would extend to anyone else who I was dating. Our… intimate life is just that, intimate. It’s meant to be private, between us. I’ve never done locker room talk, believe it or not, and I’m not going to start that now, even with you.”

She mock-toasted me with her coffee mug. “Good answer. I’m just asking if you were safe.”

“Again, I don’t want to hurt him. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Ok.” She leaned her elbows on the table. “Believe it or not, I think this is a good match.”

I choked on my coffee. “You do? Really? This isn’t really how I expected this conversation to go.”

“Yeah, I know. But look, I worried about Tony Stark, a lot, and what he wanted from Peter. Billionaires don’t normally show up in my living room and start taking my kid away to fight in foreign countries, and then start giving him presents, and then letting him use huge, expensive labs. Do you know how much money he left Peter? And me? When he died?”

I nodded. “I can see that.”

“He was… I was worried about losing Peter to him. Not Peter growing up and becoming his own man. That’s normal, that’s what kids are supposed to do to you. Grow up and break your heart when they leave.”

“He loves you.”

She smiled. “Yeah, but he still goes to college in Boston, and he doesn’t live here nine months out of the year, and soon he’ll live here zero months out of the year, and I’ll miss him. But all of that is normal.

“What Tony wanted to do, it feels like, was mold Peter into being his, not mine, but his. We’re not rich people, Happy.”

“Well, kind of you are now, May.”

She gestured vaguely. “No, you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think Tony meant any harm by it. He liked to draw his friends into his world.”

“People Tony’s age don’t have friends Peter’s age. Not if they aren’t his nephew or the son of someone they know, and even then, it’s got different layers. Different boundaries.”

I took a swallow of my coffee. “I’m about Tony’s age, if he had lived. I still want to date Parker and there won’t be many boundaries between him and me. You ok with that?”

She slowly smiled at me. “Yeah. You want to know why?”

“I honestly would love to know that, May, since I’m still working that out in my head too.”

She grabbed my free hand and held it for a minute. “I saw you with him when he was younger. You let him be himself. You weren’t asking him to be a superhero or show off how smart he was to you. You were griping at him about being safe and not calling too late at night.

“And then Tony died, and you were still letting him be himself. You came to his science fair, and I could tell you had no idea what his project was about, but you let him ramble. You’ve tied his tie at prom. You went to high school graduation and took him out to dinner afterwards. You’ve taken him to movies and brought him home at normal times. You weren’t trying to impress him, you were just being a friend to him. You’ve been stable in his life, and you always let him be who he was. He had a huge crush on you, and you just let him be and ignored it.”

“To be fair, I didn’t know that.”

“Ha! Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“Dude, you are so oblivious. Astronauts could have seen that from space! But what would you have done if you’d known he did have a crush, at seventeen?”

“Ignored it. Seventeen-year olds are off limits.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure Tony would have seen it that way.”

I shrugged. Maybe, I hoped not, but maybe.

“Anyway, I’ve seen you guys together for a lot of years. And you always just let him be himself, and you give him shit for it, and you let him tease you too. You remind me of Ben and I. You guys are friends, that matters. You let him have his interests, and you have yours, and the two of you occasionally try to make those intersect, but if they don’t, they don’t. And he’s old enough to make his own decisions. He’s 25.”

“Twenty.”

“If he had Snapped out into nothingness, I’d agree with you. But he had a life those five years. Not that either of us know much about that life. He’s 25.”

I looked at her. “So you really think that he wants to be with someone in his fifties? And larger than him?”

“Don’t be an insecure brat, Happy. I’ve never once seen him waver from you.”

All I could do was smile at her. When Parker texted me to see if I was ok, I just texted back, “Yeah.”


	12. Chapter 12

When I got to the restaurant to meet everyone for lunch, Peter was waiting outside, checking his phone. 

“Parker, you really could have stayed inside. I would have found the table.”

He shrugged at me. “Yeah, I know. No, Christabel is being a pill. Ned, Lauren and I are all taking breaks from her. Currently,” he made finger quotes, “‘I’m checking on extra-credit opportunities with my advisor.’”

I looked at him, “You’re not in classes right now.”

He stage-whispered, “I knoooowwww.”

I laughed. “How bad can she be?”

“You’ll see. Honestly, you’ll get pissed at her some point, Happy. It’s ok.”

“I’m not going to get pissed at your friends, Parker.”

“Still. If you bark at her, I’m just going to think you’re hot.”

I smirked at him. “You will not. You’ll go ‘Happyyy,’ in that voice you get.”

“No, I really don’t think I’ve conveyed to you how annoying she is.”

“Come on, Parker. Time to go inside.” I opened the door and he entered before me. Ned and Lauren looked over, suspiciously fast, when the doorbell rang, and waved super-big. Maybe I was walking into something weird.

I spotted MJ and did the polite hug thing and then ended up in a seat between Lauren and Parker, with Christabel across from me. 

MJ introduced me briefly to her. “Cris, this is Mr. Hogan --”

“You can call me Happy.”

Christabel, who was a small woman with a large amount of braids, looked at me funny. “Happy. That’s a strange nickname.”

“Oh, I got it when I was younger, when I started boxing as a kid.”

She wrinkled up her nose. I was starting to see what Parker was saying about her. I could hear Ned, who was across from Lauren, breathe heavily through his nose. “You box?”

“Yeah, actually, after lunch, I’m going to go spar with my brother since Parker’s hanging out with you guys. Vince owns a boxing gym.”

I could feel Parker put his arm on the back of my chair. He leaned close to me and breathed in my ear. “Wait for it…”

I looked at him and then looked back at her. She’d stuck little silver rings in her braids and I wasn’t sure what fashion she was aiming for. 

“Oh, that’s right. Peter said you worked security. So you have to be able to fight. Do you hit people a lot?’

I tilted my head at her. “I used to be private security for Tony Stark, but that was a lot of years ago. Now I’m the head of Global Asset Management for Stark Industries. I’m the head of an international division. I haven’t hit anyone outside of a boxing ring in years.”

She looked at Parker. “Don’t you feel weird dating someone who BOXES? Aren’t you worried?”

I could feel Parker’s hand move quickly to my back. Fuck it though, he’d said I could lose my temper a little. I held out my hand to Christabel. She stared at it.

I pointedly said, “MJ didn’t have the time to formally introduce me, and I thought I should introduce myself. Hello, I’m Happy Hogan.”

“Well, yeah, I already knew that --”

“Yeah, I just thought you should be introduced to the person who you just insinuated to the person that I’m dating that he would need to worry that I would raise a hand in anger against him. Parker has no reason to worry about me boxing, do you understand?”

MJ, looking flushed, said, “She didn’t mean that.”

I did understand the need to let them save face, especially since I didn’t know Christabel at all and MJ very little. “Maybe I misunderstood. I apologize.”

Parker moved his hand from my back to my knee and squeezed until I looked at him. He mouthed, “So hot,” and twinkled at me. Tonight was going to be fun.

Christabel, who didn’t have the decency to flush like her girlfriend, turned to Lauren, “That’s a really pretty engagement ring. Is it a blood diamond?”

Lauren looked like she wanted to be swallowed up by the floor. I patted her back too, and looked at Ned, who was just sitting gape-mouthed.

Parker cleared his throat and spoke up. “MJ, how is your dissertation going? I’ve been doing a lot of research into adhesives for medical uses, so I’m starting to look at doing grad school for biomedical engineering, but I know that’s not the same as your work. Have you finished your classes now, and you’re just working on the dissertation?”

MJ looked grateful and launched into an explanation of where she was doing her primary research. She and Parker talked for a couple of minutes, then Lauren must have found her courage.

“They’re stones from my grandmother’s ring. They’re antique - no one alive now mined them.”

Christabel just looked at her and then focused on Parker talking about his research again. Parker just nodded at me and kept speaking. I leaned in close to Lauren and said, “Attagirl, don’t let her get you down.”

She smiled at me, and then grabbed her phone and excused herself. Ned did the right thing and followed her outside.

The rest of lunch was just as nearly as unpleasant.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

 _Happy, can you meet Lauren and Ned and me for dinner?_ The text came through at 6:30pm, earlier than I expected to hear from him.

_Thought you were eating with MJ and the wicked witch???_

He sent through about three emojis of face sticking its tongue out. _She really upset Lauren._

_I’m sorry. Do her and Ned just need to eat alone?_

_No, she wants you here too._

I sent back _????_

_Srsly. Come to dinner._

Parker sent directions and thirty minutes later, I was in a sushi restaurant, sitting down with the three of them. Lauren did have a tear-stained face. I did the polite social kiss with her, and shook Ned’s hand again, and kissed Parker on his cheek, and then sat down and looked at all three of them.

“Well, she seems like a fairly terrible person. You all shouldn’t have stayed long enough to let her make Lauren this upset.”

Parker looked at me. “Oh, she poked and poked at all of us, but do you know what her dissertation is on?”

“I don’t have the vaguest idea.”

Lauren said, “She’s doing research on the afterlife.”

I looked at all three of them. “What?”

“She wants to learn what the afterlife is like,” Lauren said again. “She says that none of the people who Snapped will talk about it, but she’s going to learn what it’s like.”

“Guys, she doesn’t really seem like a brilliant conversationalist, and none of the people who Snapped are talking about it, except for the people you can tell have a few gears in the old drive-train loose. I don’t see how she’s going to learn anything.”  
“She plans on chemically-inducing death. That’s how MJ explained it,” Ned broke in.

“Has she seen _Flatliners_?”

They all stared at me blankly. “It’s a movie, from the early nineties. It didn’t work out well for the researchers.”

Parker said to the others, “Happy knows lots of classic movies.”

“Classic? It’s not a classic, Parker, it’s cheesy. But basically, forcing people into a chemical death in the movie works about as well as you expect.”

He nodded at me, vaguely lost. “Sure, whatever. But what upset Lauren --”

Lauren broke in. I could tell she was being as brave as she could be. “She’s mean and I don’t like her, and Ned can go out to breakfast with MJ by himself tomorrow.”

“Babe, if you’re this upset, I’m not going to go…”

Parker looked at me. “I plan on having you call MJ and telling her that I died in a tragic diamond-mining accident myself.”

I smiled at him. “That sounds fun, but you should do that yourself. I’ll fake some screams in the background.”

“Maybe…”

Lauren spoke up, “But it’s not that she’s mean.”

Parker spoke up. “She’s pretty mean, Lauren.”

Ned said, “So mean.”

“I, too, do not like her, Lauren,” I added.

She smiled a little. “Yeah, she’s mean, but she came in the bathroom while I was washing my hands, and she plopped her purse down by me, and I saw an Oscorp badge in her bag.”

I looked at Parker. “Christabel has a commitment to making cell-phones with shitty voice-recognition software?”

He snorted and raised his fist so we could fist-bump. Ned looked at us. “Just how much Stark Industries stock do you two have?”

Parker took a sip of his iced tea. “A lot. Like a lot.”

Ned fished out his wallet and got out a card. “Happy, man, if you ever need investment advice…”

I nodded at him and put the card away politely. “I’m sorry, Lauren. We keep interrupting you. What do you want to say?”

She looked at Parker and he nodded. She started, “If Oscorp could figure out how to send people to where we were, the Snapped people, and then get them back somehow, they could get a read on the future, know the market trends and how to stay ahead.”

“How?”

Parker broke in. “I told you, Happy, that time didn’t work the same way there. It’s hard to explain, and that’s why it’s hard to talk about.”

“I know, honey.”

Ned did the oooo-oooo sounds that middle-schoolers do when they catch their teachers dating. Parker flushed. I turned to him and said, “Are you like twelve, Ned?” But I smiled at him.

“Kind of, yeah. You have NO idea how long he talked about you --”

“Shut up, Ned,” Parker butted in.

“I’m just trying to tell your boyfriend here --”

“Shut up, Ned.”

I laughed. “Ok, Parker, time didn’t work the same way there.”

Lauren took pity on Parker who was turning a cute shade of red. “Have you ever seen a movie where they try to do a perspective of how a fly sees the world?

Ned asked, “What?”

Lauren continued, “It’s kind of the way time worked there. It’s the easiest way I can describe it.”

Parker spoke up. “Huh. I don’t think it was THAT hard to deal with, but I see where Lauren is coming from…”

“It was hard for me. But the thing is, time doesn’t move in one direction there.”

I nodded at her. “I’m starting to get it. Parker said that people were divided in groups, and that you sort of had a therapy group.”

“Yeah,” Lauren said. “Peter and I were in the same neighborhood group. That’s where we met, actually. And then Peter ran into me here, after we came back, and realized that I lived in New York too. He’s the one that introduced me to Ned.

“But anyway, we each had a little place to live in the neighborhood. You’d be cooking dinner, and all of a sudden you’d flash to a memory of yourself eating birthday cake when you were four --”

“Or you’d flash forward and you’d see yourself as an older person playing chess,” Parker said. “That one freaked me out. I don’t play chess now.”

“I can teach you,” I said without thinking.

“I know.” He said, smiling, with his eyes soft. “I was playing it with you.” I smiled back at him, goofily. I could hear Ned choke back laughter.

“So, what I’m worried about,” Lauren said, “is that if they are able to send someone who is artificially dead, they’ll be able to see bits of the future that matters. Like it’s nice that Peter saw himself playing chess, and I saw myself weeding a garden, but those things don’t matter.”

“But we actually weren’t looking for things that mattered, you see,” Parker broke in. “We weren’t sure what was going on and the people that were helping us didn’t know either. But both Lauren and I think --”

“That if you knew how to direct the way you were seeing,” Lauren said, “You could see how the stock markets moved, or find inventions of the future. Even you, Peter --”

“Right.” He nodded. “When you and I were playing chess, there was a really advanced robot in the corner, making tea. I didn’t pay any attention to it, Happy, because I wasn’t looking in that direction, but if I did, I probably could have picked things up.”

Lauren nodded. “And the people there that were helping us, they were so flustered. They didn’t know what was happening or why we were there.”

“Really upset, very nervous.” Parker agreed.

“I think they were letting us flash more to the future than normal. The one that was sort of leading our group, she would be like, ‘See, you see yourself in a garden, Lauren. This will all get sorted out, just be patient, just be calm.’”

“So we think they let us see more flashes of ourselves in the future than they normally would have, just so we’d have hope.” Peter added. “If more people came, that they didn’t know why they were there…”

“Oscorp could get a competitive advantage,” I said.

They both nodded. We didn’t have much fun with our sushi dinner. Parker was probably starting to think I was a terrible date.

+++++++++++++++++++++

I was driving Parker back to my place after dinner in the Caddy - he had already dropped off the Volvo at his aunt’s - and we were bickering idly about the music on the radio, when I thought of something.

“Parker, if Christabel is working for Oscorp, you shouldn’t have talked to her so much about your work with your adhesive project.”

A sly look came over his face. “I think anyone at Oscorp in the science lab would know that I fed bad information before they started to try to replicate it, but if for some reason they didn’t, they’d end up with an industrial lubricant for heavy machinery that’s been in use for fifty years. Nothing that will do them any good.”

I looked at him in surprise. “That is downright sneaky. I’m proud of you, Parker.”

I pulled up the garage of my building and pulled into my space. He said, “Yeah, I really, really didn’t like Christabel.”

I laughed. We held hands on the way to the elevator and as soon as we got in, I got in his space and kissed him. I could feel him smile against my lips as he said, “Camera, Happy.”

“So?” I quirked an eyebrow at him. “I wasn’t planning on having sex with you in the elevator, not that I’m crossing it off our menu forever--”

He laughed. I liked seeing his face happy. “We can have sex in an elevator someday?”

“Absolutely. I have a couple of guys that I wouldn’t mind shocking on the third watch.”

I opened the front door and gestured him in. As soon as I got in the door too, and shut it, he crowded me up against it. I could see him watching me to see if it was ok, so I did my best to keep my body language loose and open. I was perfectly fine with whatever he wanted to do. 

“I think Ms. Potts might be upset.”

“What, you think her and Tony never did it in an elevator? Really?”

He groaned and leaned up and kissed me. I kissed him back, enthusiastically, lifting a hand to his cheek. “Not something I need to think about, Happy.”

“Just saying, I don’t think she’ll be super-shocked…”

He put his arms around my neck and stepped even closer to me. “So about sex…”

I leaned down to rest my cheek against his. “What about it?”

“Can we have some? Don’t get me wrong, we can go back to the making out later, Happy, but I’d really, really like to see you naked. A lot.”

“I don’t think you’ll be quite as excited about seeing me naked as I will you, Peter.”

He flashed me a brilliant smile at the use of his first name and leaned in and kissed me. For someone who apparently hadn’t dated a lot, he’d picked up a lot with me, in only one night. He was kissing me exactly the way that I wanted to be kissed right now, all heat and warmth and breath on my cheek and a hard-on pressed to my right leg. I made a soft sound in the back of my throat.

“Told you, I’ve come a lot thinking about you. I think it’ll only be better when you’re actually in person, Happy,” he said quietly.

“Mmmmph,” I said, articulately and started moving him towards the bedroom. I took a small amount of pride in the fact that I only knocked him into one end table as we backed each around, still kissing each other. 

I got him to the room and pulled back to look at him, “Lights ok? On or off?” He was so flushed and beautiful that I hoped he’d be ok with the lights on, but I also wanted him to be comfortable.

He leaned forward and kissed me fiercely. “On, Happy. Definitely on.”

“Mmm, I love the way you kiss me, Parker.” He kissed me again. I pushed him away a little bit. “Ok, though, we’re still thinking--”

“Really ok not thinking here,”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. Two seconds and then we can get to it, ok?”

“Counting down now, Happy.”

I grinned at him. I know I looked like a fool, but fuck it, only he could see me right now. “I just need to know some quick boundaries here, Parker.”

He tilted his head at me. 

“Ready to try intercourse? Off the table for right now? Either way is fine.”

I could see the wheels spinning in his head. I grabbed his hand to try to keep him grounded to me. “Which way would the intercourse go?”

I leaned forward and kissed the corner of his mouth softly. “Lucky for you, darling, I’m flexible. Whichever way you want it.”

He surged towards me and kissed me, hotly. “You’d let me fuck you?”

I moved an arm around him, “Absolutely, I would. Just like I’d want to fuck you one day.”

I got an inarticulate groan back and squeezed his hand. “So fucking tonight?”

“Mmmm….God, you turn me on so much, I can’t think… No, probably not, Happy. I’m not sure…”

“If you’re not sure, then it’s not on the table, and that is perfectly fine. I know lots of other ways to make you come.” I started backing him up to the bed - which I had remade with fresh linens once I got back home from May’s apartment this morning - until his knees hit and he sat down. I leaned down and kissed him. 

He pulled back from me a little, “You sure that’s ok? We can try.”

“I’d rather you feel like you could succeed, Parker. It’s fine. Still lots of ways to have fun too.” I sat down next to him. “So anything else off the table?”

“Are you planning to hang me from the chandelier? Cause I could probably do that for you, you know. Like that movie with the superhero, where he kissed the girl upside down.”

I smiled at him. He was getting nervous and rambly. “Tongues are all in the wrong place, trust me. It’s hard kissing upside down.” I looked speculatively up at the ceiling. “I don’t think that light fixture will hold you anyway.” I held his hand and rubbed his thumb.

He chuckled. “Ok, so what are you asking?”

“So are blow jobs ok? Can I give you a hand job? You want to try rubbing our dicks together?” I leaned forward and kissed him gently. “I can think about twelve ways, easy, that we can come together--”

“I like all of those ideas.” He kissed me back a little deeper and was starting to get back into it. Good, I wanted him to relax.

“Anything else particularly off-limits?” I asked.

He shook his head. 

“Ok, pick a word you won’t say during sex.”

“What?”

“You going to yell out avocado?”

He looked at me strangely. “No…”

“Fantastic! That’s your safe word. I do something weird, you yell out avocado and it all stops, ok?

“You’re weird, Happy.”

I winked at him. “You’ll thank me when I bring out the jumper cables. Now come here honey, and let me kiss you properly.” He came over and I let him lay me back, so that he could feel like he had control. We kissed for a good five minutes or so, relaxing into it, learning where each other’s good spots were. He learned that there was a spot on the left side of my neck that made me gasp, and I learned that having his earlobes nibbled made him purr.

I slid my hands up underneath his shirt, feeling his skin. I hadn’t reached under his shirt last night, thinking he’d never relaxed quite enough, but he melted into me now, and his hips rocked into my leg. I let him melt for a couple of minutes then asked, my voice rougher than I had thought it would be, “Can I take this off, honey?

He twisted away from me in a way that I knew in a way that I was not that flexible enough now to achieve and probably never had been - he was going to be lovely and bend-y later - and tugged his shirt off. 

He leaned back down to catch my lips again. “Uh-uh. Time for me to look now, Parker.” He sat back obediently on his feet, which surprised me, that he wasn’t shy with me, but honestly, what did he have to be shy about? He was breath-taking. His hair was all messed-up, and he was slightly flushed and breathing hard, and he was the most beautiful person I’d ever seen in my bed. Most beautiful person ever.

I smiled up goofily at him. “Eight.”

“Eight what?”

“You have an eight-pack, I’d wondered.”

His blush managed to go down his chest. “Your shirt off now.” He tugged at the hem. 

I sat up and pulled mine off. I let him look for a minute then said, “Am I ok?” 

He looked up at me in the face, from where he’d been looking at my chest, and it surprised me. His pupils were blown dark with lust, and he pushed me back down on my back, with no tentativeness this time at all. He slid down a little bit and sucked and licked my right nipple. I groaned, and he bit it. “Fuck, Parker, so good!”

He pulled back onto all fours, just on top of me. He looked me in the eye, and then leaned down to nuzzled at my neck and spoke into my ear. “Happy, I have wanted since I was fifteen. I’m so turned on by you. I want you. I want to make you come and I want you to make me come. I love your body.” He wriggled a little to slide his chest along mine. The skin to skin slide made us both gasp, and I knew that I was going to spend the entire evening trying to get my naked body as close to his naked body as humanly possible. 

“Pants. Pants need to come off.” I managed to say. I’m not sure how we quite managed to get them off but we did. His cock was gorgeous. I’d thought he might be a little less than average, based on his frame, but he was actually quite a bit more than average and it had turned a sexy red color.

He stared openly at me too. I knew I didn’t have anything to be ashamed of, so I let him look. He reached a hand towards me. “Can I?”

“Always can touch me, beautiful.” I laid back down, and he tentatively put his hand around me. “Little bit firmer, baby.” He closed his fist around me slowly, and when he hit the right level of grip, “That’s it, right there, that’s perfect, honey.” I closed my eyes and let myself enjoy the slow side of his hand for a minute. I had enough pre-cum to smooth the way, but it’d feel better with lube. I made a game time decision. 

“Mmmm, good, Parker. Baby, there’s lube in the bedside table next to you, can you grab it?”

“But we’re not…”

“Lube can be used for other reasons, honey. Please tell me you don’t masturbate dry.”

He flashed me a quick look. I chuckled. “We are going to have so much fun together, beautiful. Grab it.” He twisted and got the tube.

He handed it to me. I opened it and squeezed some on my hand. “Hand out.” I squeezed some in his too. “We’re going to do this together. Lay back down.” I laid back down next to him, and grabbed our cocks together. I grunted when they touched. He shuddered.

“Oh Jesus, Happy.”

I stroked us gently, until his hand came over mine and guided it faster. He put his leg over my hip, and we started kissing again, and oh God, it was all so sweet and perfect, and I could hear his little gasps and moans, and I could hear myself keening too, and it didn’t matter, and then I felt a splash of hot wet on my hand, and Parker moaned so beautifully too, and when I came, I swear that I saw stars.

I know that I groaned in his mouth, and he groaned back with me, and oh God.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so this month has been crazy. Husband and I have bought a house, mom's sold a house, we've auctioned a house, and I'm very tired. But also committed to finishing up this story! I hope to have it all finished up by the next couple of weeks.

I’m pretty sure that I managed to do all the appropriate good boyfriend things after sex - the cuddling and the sweet talk - but he passed out pretty quickly, and I conked out right after.

When I woke up a couple of hours later, I was in the little spoon position, with his arm cradled around my belly. He was kissing my neck. It was semi-dark in the room - it felt like 11pm or midnight, maybe.

“Parker, what time is it?”

“About 11:30, I think.”

“Can’t sleep?”

He moved his arm from my stomach to my arm. “Your phone has been blowing up with texts. I was trying to decide if I should wake you up or let you sleep.”

I moaned and shifted onto my back. I rubbed my eyes. “If it’s this late on a Saturday, it’s either Vince’s kids blew off their arms with fire-crackers or it’s work. Sorry it woke you up, sweetheart. I’ll take the call out in the living room. Go back to sleep.”

He shook his head. “It’s ok. You can take it here.”

I grabbed my phone from the floor, where it must have been tossed and thumbed in the access code.

Parker spoke up. “You have a bruise on your back, Happy. Where did you get it?”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Boxing with Vince. Where’d you get the bruise on your side?”

“Stopping a mugging.”

“Uh-huh. We’re both going to get bruises.” I grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “We’re both fine, Parker.”

He grinned at me.  
I looked at my phone. Parker was right, I had dozens of texts, but I did want to dig a little deeper into this conversation. Thanks a load, Christabel.

“Parker, you do know that just because I like to box, doesn’t mean that I’ll hurt you, right?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “You’ve boxed with me, Happy. And that was just to teach me to block. I had a head-guard on and a mouth-guard. I’ve never been that protected in fights before, and you’ve never once raised a hand to me outside of the ring. Don’t let her get in your head.”

I nodded, and he continued. “Besides, I’m stronger than you are. It doesn’t matter. I’m stronger than most people, but I’m not worried about you hurting me.”

“How long have she and MJ been together?”

He sat up, and wonderfully for me, he didn’t rearrange the sheet around him, giving me a lovely view of his cock. Parker was half-hard, but he looked like he could be encouraged to full hardness without a lot of effort on my part. He caught me looking and leaned into me, nuzzling at my neck. “So are your messages important?”

“Probably, Parker.”

“More important than teaching me how to give a blow-job?”

I grinned sharply at him. “Unfortunately, probably, yes.” I moved my hand to pinch at his ass.

He kissed at my cheek. “I’m in my early twenties. I’m really not going to last that long. You’ll be back to checking your messages in fifteen minutes, easy.” He pulled back and smiled brightly at me.

I broke out in laughter. “Way to sell yourself, Parker.”

He shrugged. “Not saying I won’t be good, just saying I won’t delay you much.” He shimmied gracefully down and laid down on his back, spreading his legs out so that I had a good view of his cock and balls, and lower, his hole. He looked wonderful, and he was so ready to show himself to me. I hadn’t had many lovers that were so open about their bodies.  
Then again most of them didn’t look as good Parker did on his worst days. I groaned and laid down beside him.

“You are really not going to be good for my work output, are you?”

“It’s midnight on a Saturday. I am horny. I can get you to be horny. We’ll have fun and your texts will still be there.”

I grabbed at his hand and kissed it. “Never doubt that I will always want you. You don’t have to get me to be anything.”

He turned his head and leered at me. “So you’ll be teaching me then?”

“I’m assuming by teaching, you mean me giving you a blow-job, right, Parker?”

He chuckled. “Yes. But then you’ll get to be the recipient of my very first blow-job ever! Aren’t you excited?”

I leaned over and kissed him. “Then I better teach you well, hadn’t I?”

“Fortunately, for you, I’m a quick study, Happy.” I smiled dopily at him. Damn, but he made me happy to be with him.

He reached behind himself to get something. “What are you doing, sweetheart?”

“Grabbing a pillow for my hips.” I looked at him strangely for a minute - this is what made things comfortable for me, but there’s no reason why Parker should know that. I hadn’t talked to him about it, and I wasn’t planning on asking him to prop his hips up for me this time. He did deserve to have his first time in a position that made him comfortable, and he was right. If he lasted the five minutes that it would take for my jaw to lock-up, I would have been shocked, even with the orgasm earlier. Still, I wasn’t going to let the gift-pillow go.

I did tuck it to one side later though for more questioning.

“Good boy.” I took the pillow and arranged it underneath him as he lifted his hips up. I noticed that he did a full-body flush and his cock got harder at the compliment. That, I fully filed to memory. It was going to come in handy later. 

I hooked at hand underneath his knee and pulled his leg gently towards me. I kissed on the inside of his leg. “So you think we can knock this out in under five minutes?”

Parker laughed. “This part of it, probably.” He grabbed at my hand. “I’m nervous.”

I guided his hand to my mouth and kissed it. “What about, honey? This part’s an easy part.”

“What if I taste gross?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Have you showered in the past 24 hours? You’ll be fine.”

“Ok then, what if I make weird noises?”

“I want to hear whatever noises you wanna make.”

“What if I’m weird, Happy? Have you thought of that?” He was smiling at me, finally.

“You ARE weird, Parker, but I figured that out years ago.” I squeezed his hand again. “Just relax, I’ve got you. I’ll make you feel good, I promise. That’s the only thing you need to worry about.”

“What if I don’t get you off later, Happy?”

I snorted. “For someone who was so sure that this was going to be over quickly so that I could get back to checking work texts, you’re sure dragging this out, Parker.”

I kissed him, as softly and sweetly as I could. “So how did you know about the pillow, sweetheart? That I like to do this better when you’ve got your hips propped up?” I nudged my nose against his.

“It was a flash-forward, Happy. I could see us doing this, and I was always propped up on a pillow. I just figured…”

“Well, you figured right. It’s easier.” I nestled down and placed my head so that we were sharing a pillow. “Come on, roll over so I can see your face, beautiful.”

He moved towards me slowly. “I’m sorry I’m being neurotic, Happy.”

 

“Parker, you’ve always over-thought things, this isn’t anything new. Relax.” I rubbed my hand gently between his shoulder blades. “So basically, when you Snapped back, if I’m understanding everything correctly, you knew that we’d end up together?”

“Mmm-hmmm.”

“So the red room is?”

He breathed in heavily through his nose. “Basically, if it got really bad, like if we were really depressed, one of them would take us aside, and say that they thought this attempt X, or that try Z was going to work, and see how things were going to be when we got back? It was in a room.”

“And the room is red.”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“Well, when you think about it, Parker, it really wasn’t that much of a mystery. Good on you for spreading that one out.” I kissed him lightly on the nose.

He smiled weakly. “It’s hard to figure out how to say things, sometimes.”

“Yeah, I know. There were multiple attempts to get you guys back?”

“Yeah, I think so. SHIELD tried. A couple of other government projects, from a couple of other governments too. I mean, the time travel was what worked, but other people tried. They just didn’t work, I don’t think. It wasn’t all on Tony’s shoulders.”

I took a moment to absorb this. “I’m pretty sure he always assumed everything was on his shoulders, Parker.”

He nodded.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, honey.”

Parker wrinkled his nose. “For what?”

“I’m sorry you feel like you’re stuck with me. You don’t have to be here, you know.”

He sat up so abruptly that he almost pushed me off the bed. “What fuck, Happy?!? I don’t have to be here?”

I sat up too. I almost went to put my hand on his leg, but he looked furious. I didn’t really want to make it worse. But I did want to make sure he knew he didn’t have to be with me, even if the people in his Snap tried to tell him differently.

“Honey, calm down.”

He stared at me. “No. I won’t calm down.”

“Well, you should, sweetheart. I didn’t mean that I didn’t want you to be here, or that I don’t want you here, or that I don’t want to date you. But I’m also thirty years older than you…”

“Happy, I may have father issues that I’m working through, but that’s not on you,” I could see him start to soften up just a little bit.

I chuckled. “Understood. Also, please understand that if the word “daddy,” ever, ever comes out of your mouth while we’re having sex, all sex stops for like a week, while I shower over and over again, ok?”

He smiled a tiny bit. “Ok.”

“I’m also not as… physically fit as you, Parker.”

He smiled a tiny bit larger. “Happy. No one but a mutant, of WHICH I AM ONE, is going to run as much as I do, or spin spiderwebs out their wrists…”

“Which kinda, baby, still freaks me out a little.” I admitted.

He shrugged. “Yeah, well, you just got finished telling me you know that I’m weird. This is part of it. Anyway, you box two or three times a week. My senses are always dialed up, a little, and your heart rate is in the 60s. I can hear it. You’re perfectly fit.”

“Still, I can tell our relative hotness, Parker.”

He moved so he was straddling my lap, and kissed me. When I pulled back a little to keep talking to him, he moved forward and kissed me harder, until I was slightly dizzy with it. “I told you, I’ve literally had a crush on you, since the day I met you. I’m pretty sure the first night I met you, I jerked off to you, Happy. That hasn’t really stopped.”

I pulled his head down a little. I leaned my forehead against his. “You could jerk off with me. That would be hot.”

He smiled at me and kissed me again. “Yeah, it would be. I don’t feel trapped with you, if that’s what you’re worried about, just because I know bits and pieces of how it should go.”

“But maybe, it shouldn’t be that way. Maybe, you should be with someone first and then come back to me.”

He pulled back from me, and I could see him thinking. “What Parker?”

“Give me a minute. I”m trying to think how to explain.”

I nodded. “Ok.” I occupied myself by stroking his arm up and down.

After a minute, I could see his face clear. “Ok, Happy. Do you really want me having sex with other people and coming back to you later?”

“No, not really, sweetheart. But it might be fairer to you. I’ve had sex with other people, so I know how good I have it coming to you.”

He made a face at me. “We’ve only had one hand job together. I could be TERRIBLE at sex, you don’t know.”

“Not likely. We’ll get there. Part of the fun is learning together, as we go.”

“Mmm. But the thing is, I don’t WANT someone else. I have tried, you know. I mean when I was fifteen, I did actually get that our ages didn’t match up right. So I did date, a little, but I had more fun with you yelling at me because I called too late than I did making out in the back of a car with someone. So that was a sign.”

“You did not.”

 

“Shut up, Happy, I did too. Anyway, I came back after the Snap, and remember when I fell through the floor?”  
“It’s hard to forget, Parker.”

“Yeah, so the night is hazy, but I do remember asking you to come to bed.”

“You did. I just figured it was someone else you were thinking of.”

“No, I asked you to come to bed, mostly because I probably did want you to come to bed, but also because you were supposed to be in bed with me. I remember that feeling very clearly, just like I could poke myself with the shards of that embarrassing moment for YEARS.”

I grinned at him. “I wouldn’t have gotten in your bed when you were eighteen, you know, especially with your aunt outside in the kitchen.”

“Didn’t mean I didn’t want you there, or think that you should have been there, Happy.”

“Yeah?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah.”

“So can I go back to giving you a blow job now? You cool with that?”

He broke out into laughter. “Yes, I’m cool with it.”

“Good. For God’s sake, Parker, I have text messages to read.”

“Oh, by all means, don’t let me keep you.” He smirked at me, as I went back down to the more interesting parts of Parker.

He made the sexiest sound, a low growl in his throat, as I licked him from root to tip. His hips surged forward, and I adjusted by hold on him, by putting my arms underneath his knees, and putting my hands on my hips to keep him down. 

I pulled back and leered at him. “You don’t taste weird at all.”

He made an inarticulate noise, and gripped my hands at his hip. I went back down and sucked at the tip lightly. He thrust again so that he bumped against the back of my throat. I could see he pulled his strength a lot though and rewarded him by swallowing as he thrust. Good boys did deserve their reward, after all.  
His whole length slid down my throat. I breathed in through my nose as my throat adjusted and enjoyed the sound of his yell. I involuntarily rutted against the mattress - he may not have much time to learn on me, at this rate.

“Fuuuuuccccckkkk,” I could hear him swear, and slid back up, taking him all the way back down again. 

“Happy, oh, Jesus, oh, fuck, -- I’m not going to be able to do this the first time --” I smiled to myself at that. “God, you’re so good, god, you’re so good. I’d totally call you a name, but I know you wouldn’t like it, oh, fuck.” He babbled, as I smiled to myself

I could hear him panting above me and figured that he must be getting close. I had drooled all over his cock, and slid the middle finger of my right hand through the wet. As he thrust up again, I gently slid my finger half-way in. 

That was enough to trigger his orgasm. I did my best to swallow it all, but I know I got some on my chin. When his pleasure finally started to ease back, I came up and hugged him, gentling him through the aftershocks.

That’s when the phone rang, with Ms. Potts’ ring-tone. Shit.


	14. Chapter 14

I laid my forehead against his shoulder for a minute. “Fuck.”

He turned his head towards me. “Sorry. Guess I should have let you check your texts after all.”

I aimed a vague kiss at Parker’s ear, and snorted. “Especially now that I’m turned on. Should make talking to my boss interesting.”

The phone stopped ringing. I knew it was only for a minute though, before it started up again. I smiled at him and took a moment to breathe before I picked up the phone on the second call.

“You want to jerk off before she calls again? It’s fine. You can probably come faster from that than I can make you come, right now.”

_Fuck_. I took a deep breath. “Nope. Thanks though.”

He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Seriously, it’s fine.”

I grabbed his free hand, the one that wasn’t lodged underneath my neck. “Yeah, we’re totally doing that some time together, but not now.”

“Why?”

“Parker, sometimes it’s like playing twenty questions with you, you know?” I softened my statement with a kiss to his forehead. “Look, that’s kind of one of… my things. One of the fantasies I have about you.”

He looked at me, puzzled.

I sighed. “One day, if you’re ok with it and it doesn’t make you uncomfortable…”

He nodded. “Uh-huh?”

“I’d-really-like-to-make-myself-come-on-you.” I rushed it out, in one breath. “It doesn’t have to be anywhere in particular, not like on your face, or anything.”

“Ok. We can do that now,” he offered, cheerfully.

I could feel myself staring at him in disbelief. “You’re ok with that?”

He rolled his eyes. “Happy. You coming on me is not exactly a shocking thing. I had your come on my hands like 3 hours ago. Ms. Potts is going to call back in like five minutes, isn’t she? Now’s your chance.”

I gritted my teeth against the urge to touch myself, and positively _dug_ my face into his shoulder.

“Ow!”

“Yeah, well, Parker. You’re kind of just granting something that I really, really want with a wave of your hand and a ‘Now’s your chance,’. Pardon me for taking a moment to breathe.”

He had enough sense to stay quiet and let me process.

“Seriously, it is really kind of a thing for me, Parker. I thought I’d have to sort of talk you into it later.”

“Am I missing something, Happy? It doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.”

I propped myself up on one shoulder to look at him. “Yeah, it may not be to you. It does happen a lot in porn, but for me, it’s kind of… like, fuck…” I groaned and thought of how to say it.

I started. “Look. The way I kind of have it in my head, and I’ve given this a lot of thought…”

He grinned at me. 

I grinned back. “Yeah, a lot. Fantasy-wise, it’s basically you catch me jerking off, and then you decide to join in… It’s really hot, for me.”

He repeated, “And, again, we can do that.”

“Parker, my God. Look, take this as me trying to start this relationship off right and trying to communicate with you honestly, ok? I’m telling you a fairly big thing about myself, alright?”

He caught my eye and then nodded, solemnly.

“Ok, so yeah, there’s the fantasy, and it’s hot, but beneath that, basically, you would be seeing me, and it would be the sexual part of me, that not a lot of people get to see, and you’d get to see me making myself feel good, and maybe you’d be feeling good yourself and it would be _me_ and _my_ body making you hot, and then you’d trust me, and like me enough to … let me get you a little dirty.”

Parker reached a hand up to gently pull my face down so that he could kiss me. “I like you plenty, Happy.”

I kissed him back, “I know. I like you too. I like you enough to want to turn you on.”

“You do. Watching you touch yourself is going to turn me on, Happy.” He slid his soft cock against my hip, “So, as I said before, ‘Now is your chance’. Make me dirty.”

I took the hand that was resting on his hip and smacked his behind, lightly. “God, you’re a terrible influence, Parker. No, I’m not doing that in the rushed three minutes we have. If you let me do that --”

“I will.”

I smiled goofily at him. “If you let me do that,” I repeated. “We’ll be taking our time and I want to enjoy it. Maybe talk you into letting film it.”

He broke into a happy laugh. I bopped a kiss on his nose. “Go take a shower. I’ll take the call out in the living room so if it takes awhile, you can go back to sleep.” I stood up and grabbed my robe from the hook and put it on, tying it at my waist. “I’ll be back.”

Parker nodded at me as he stretched, cat-like. I finally managed to tear myself away from the sight of him and his abs, locating Pepper’s phone number in my contacts. I went over by the picture window to look out at the city as I talked to her. Since Boss had died, and we had managed to claw Stark Industries back into a good place without its founder, Pepper enforced really good work/life boundaries for herself and tried to do the same thing for her staff. She wasn’t calling on a Saturday night/Sunday morning so late over just an unfiled expense report.

She answered on the first ring. “Happy! Thanks for calling me back so quickly!”

“I was just about to apologize for it taking so long, actually.”

She laughed lightly. “It’s Saturday night, super-late. It’s ok. We tried texting you first, but ordinary people have lives on Saturday nights.”

I cleared my throat. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“Have you seen Peter recently? We’ve tried getting a hold of him at his aunt’s, but May just laughed and said to call you.”

I coughed again. “Does he not have his phone on him?”

I could hear her talking to someone else in the background softly before she talked to me again. “Well, that’s kind of part of it, Happy. We’re not sure who would be listening on his line.”

“What?”

“We’re pretty sure that May’s land-line is ok. I mean, who has a land-line anymore, right? But they are easy to send tracers out on, and her line tested clean, so we could call her and you’ve got a secured Stark-phone, but --”

“Pepper. Why are you worried about Parker’s cell phone being tracked?”

I could hear her take a deep breath. “There was tampering to his suit. To the software. According to Danny,” who was my second-in-command, “the virus didn’t have enough time to fully deploy through the software last night, when he used it. Now, it’s probably through all of the software attached to--”

“Pepper, please excuse my language. What the fuck are you doing giving that to Danny instead of me?”

“Calm down, Happy. Danny was on-call.”

“And I care more about Parker than Danny does!”

“I know, Happy, I know. That’s why this had to go Danny. And he’s got all of the top-level IT staff working on this.”

“Pepper --”

“Get in touch with Peter and tell him not to use any of the suits or to try to talk to Karen. We’re not sure what all’s been affected yet. Do you know where he is? Don’t use the phone.”

“Yeah, he’s in my bathroom, taking a goddamn shower, Pepper. We just finished a date. Can I talk to Danny now? Is he there?”

My voice was raised, and Parker poked his head out at me, checking on me. I shrugged my shoulders at him and kept talking to Pepper. He nodded at me and then turned back to the bedroom. Who the fuck knew what he was doing?

“Oh, Happy, how wonderful!” She exclaimed. “When did the two of you start dating? You’ll have to come out to dinner the two of you, once this is all straightened up.”

“Goddamnit, Pepper. He could have DIED.”

All of sudden, all of the sweet socialite-tinkle voice of hers stilled, and the business-person came out. “I know, Happy. I get it. I’m frightened for Peter too. Danny is working very hard. We all are. We like Peter a great deal. You CAN’T work on this one. You’re too close, and you would be even if you weren’t dating him.”

Parker came out of the room in boxers and a t-shirt, trailing a blanket. He sat down on the sofa and patted it, indicating that I should sit down. I was surrounded by crazy people. I turned my back on Peter, so that I could keep talking to Ms. Potts, when a web flew past my left shoulder, and stuck to the glass. I turned my head to look at him incredulously.

“Peter, what the fuck? I’m talking to Pepper.”

He raised his eyebrows at me and patted the sofa again. I stared at him and then huffed over, and sat down. He tucked the blanket around himself and then laid his head down on my lap. He looked at me and made a keep-it-rolling gesture with his hands, pointing at the phone.

I shook my head in disbelief at him and then continued. “Can I talk to Danny, Pepper? I promise I’m not going to yell at him. I just want to check to see what he’s working on.”

“Fine. Tell Peter hello, and we’re working to keep him safe. I’ll talk to you later, Happy.” I could hear her talking to someone again in the background, before she came back on the line. “Danny’s in the middle of something. He said he’ll call you in five minutes.”

“If he doesn’t, I’m getting my clothes on and driving down there.”

“I promise. He’ll call you back. Stick the phone on Peter’s ear.”

“Pepper.”

“Seriously. I write your evaluations, Happy, whether you like it or not. He’s there, I know it. Stick the phone on Peter’s ear.”

Fuck it, I stuck the phone on Peter’s ear. He nodded for a minute and then blushed. 

“Yeah, I will, Ms. Potts. I promise.”

She talked to him again for a couple of minutes and then Peter said good-bye and moved my hand away from his ear.

“What did she want, Parker?”

“To tell me that she was happy for us, and that she knew you better than she knows me, so not to take it personally when she told me that she’d beat me with a hammer if I hurt you. She would have said that to you about me, but like she said, she knows you better.”

I let my heart rate fall back down to something approaching normal. Danny and I worked better if we weren’t yelling at each other. I ran my fingers through his hair. “I wouldn’t let her hurt you with a hammer.”

“Thanks, Happy.”

“Anytime.” I sat for another moment. “You get what Pepper was talking about.”

He yawned. “Something about my suit?”

“Yeah. Apparently, the reason it shorted out last night was because there’s a virus in the software. You can’t wear that suit again, Parker.”

“Ok.”

“Or any of them, not until we figure out what it is.”

“Ok.”

“I just want you to be safe, Parker.”

“I know. Ok.”

“You shouldn’t talk about anything on your cell phone or in your messaging. Nothing about where you’re going or your location or anything like that. I’ll give you a secure phone that you can use to call me or your aunt and maybe Ned. We’ll have to lock down the other lines. Don’t even talk to the dentist about appointments, nothing like that. Nothing that could tell people where you will be or are.”

“Ok.”

“You trust Ned? If you don’t trust Ned absolutely, I’m not giving you phone access on the secure line.”

“I trust Ned. And Lauren. It’s ok.”

“I know I seem like I’m controlling, but I want you to be safe, Parker.”

He grabbed at my hand. “You’re not listening to me, Happy. It’s all ok. I won’t use the suits. I’ll use the secure line. You can even tuck me away here until you and Danny figure it out. I want to be safe too.”

I stared at him. “You won’t use the suits. Not until I tell you it’s safe? You, Peter Parker, are telling me that.”

“Yes.”

“You fell down a flight because you were looking for a Lego kit, Parker. You text me pictures of you with webbed-up muggers. I see the headlines in the Bugle every day. You’re just going to sit on my sofa and wait for Danny and I to figure this out?” I raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, well, you’ve seen me in the suit, Happy. There’s not a lot of room for Lego sets in there, you know?” He sat up a little and nudged my shoulder with his. “We just started dating, you know?”

“I know, Parker.”

“I’d like a little bit of time to just be. You know? I have to go back to school in a month, and we won’t see each other as much. I wasn’t really planning on doing anything as Spider-man. I want to hang out with you anyway.”

“You were just going to be hanging out with me anyway? Really?” I looked at him doubtfully.

“You make me sound like I don’t want to be with you, Happy. Do you feel like that?” He turned his head and looked at me full in the face.

I scrubbed my hand across my face. “I don’t know, Parker. It’s late. I’m tired and worried. I thought I’d have to tie you to the bedpost to keep you safe.”

He smiled at me. “We can try it, but I’m not really sure I want to be tied up.”

I did what he wanted me to do, which was laugh a little. Then I tugged him in to me and stuck my face in his hair and breathed him in a little bit. He had just showered, so I smelled the shampoo - which wasn’t his scent, I’d have to get some for him - more than I normally did, but underneath it, I could smell reassuring Parker-scent. I could feel my blood pressure lowering a little more.

“I’ll take time off to hang out with you, Parker.”

“Uh-huh. I see you letting Danny take care of this on his own. That sounds like you. It really does. It’s ok, I’ll just be here, reading a book and watching bad TV while you pace and yell at him all day.”

“We’ll get this figured out, honey, and then I’ll take a couple of weeks off with you. I promise, ok?”

He nodded and slid his eyes over at me slyly, “I’m not sure Ms. Potts is going to let you take time off after you yelled at her like that.”

“She was willing to hit you with a hammer. I’m pretty sure she’ll let me take a vacation.” I leaned over to kiss him, just as the phone rang. He kissed me back lightly, and then moved to stand up. 

“Talk to Danny. I’m going back to bed.”

I thumbed my phone to answer it. Danny immediately started squawking before I even said hello. I put the phone up to my ear. “Danny, shut it for a minute. I’m talking to Parker.”

Danny, who had worked way too long with me, and was more comfortable with me than he needed to be, started making kissing noises in my ear. I couldn’t help it - I grinned - and then said, “Shut the fuck up. Jesus, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Parker looked at me, smiled, and then made shoo-ing noises at me. 

“Hang on.” I tugged at Parker’s blanket. “We’re skipping brunch, right?”

He pointed at the clock on the wall. “Yeah, it’s like two. You’re not coming to bed until five, probably. We’re going to need to sleep. I’ll text MJ first thing in the morning. Talk to Danny.”

Parker turned and went in the bedroom.

He was right. I didn’t come to bed until much, much later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I disappeared! Husband and I bought a house, then moved into the house, and now are trying to sell our old house. It didn't leave a lot of writing time, but I'm back! One (maybe two) more chapters!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter guys! I see it so clearly! The light is at the end of the Tunnel! This weekend!

It was Monday morning that the IT people figured out where the virus came from. Refreshingly, it didn’t seem like Parker, or his suits, was the actual target, just some ancillary damage from an Eritrean teenager who had learned how to program and decided that the first beneficiary of her new talent should be the Stark servers. It appeared to be just dumb luck that it was the servers that Karen was housed on. The teen had no connection to Parker or Parker to her, and when the SHIELD agents showed up at her family’s doors, terrifying her mother, she truly seemed to have no knowledge of Spider-man nor did she really seem to care. 

SHIELD contacted Wakandan officials to deal with the kid. Parker and I went back to “honeymooning” on Monday afternoon - my body was starting to understand that there was going to be a plentiful supply of sex and touching for the near future and was starting to revel in it - secure in the knowledge that there’d be a 7am debriefing on Tuesday at Stark Headquarters to ruin the honeymoon bliss.

The driver arrived promptly at 6am, before I’d manage to swallow enough coffee to really be conscious. Parker, however, was wide-awake and ready to talk.

“So can I go back to my normal cell-phone now, Happy?”

I looked at him blearily. “Why?”

“It’s kind of limiting to only be able to call you and Aunt May, Happy. You wouldn’t even put Ned or MJ on the call-list.”

“Do you really trust Ned?”

He rolled his eyes. “You worked with Mr. Stark for thirty years. Did you really trust him?”

“Yes, and you’re not even thirty yet. You haven’t put in the time with Ned that I did with Tony.”

“Doesn’t mean I don’t trust him or MJ.”

“Parker, do you know who my first suspect was with the suit? It was Christabel. She’s with Oscorp, she’s not that nice, and she’s dating MJ. I’d really prefer that you take some time to think about who you trust and don’t.”

“Happy! Christabel didn’t have anything to do with this. For one thing, Christabel lives in England, not in AFRICA! And yeah, I don’t want to hang out with her, but I do trust MJ. Jesus.”

“Don’t take our Lord’s name in vain, Parker.” I sensed that I may have overstepped a little, and I didn’t really want to fight.

He snorted. “Christabel works in chemistry and a really obscure part of it. I had to show her how to connect to the wifi in the restaurant on her phone. She’s not tapping into the servers. Don’t tell me who to trust and not trust. I’m not a child.”

I sighed and took his hand. He let me hold it for a minute, but didn’t go to hold mine back. I was probably going to have to bend here, and I knew I wouldn’t be great at it. Fuck.

I pulled his hand to my lips and kissed it. “I’m sorry, Parker. You’re right.”

His head snapped from the window that he was staring out of to look at me. “What?”

“I’m sorry, and you’re right.”

“Will you do that every time we fight? Tell me I’m right?” He was softening a little bit.

“Only if you’re right. Which won’t be that often. I’m nearly always right.” I smiled at him a little bit. _Forgive me._

He smiled back a little. “Don’t be so overprotective of me.”

“That’s not easy, Parker. I don’t want you to get hurt. Even if we weren’t dating, I would have been just as overprotective, you know.”

“I really can take care of myself, Happy.”

“And I really want to take care of you. I’ll try to be better about not being a dick about it though.”

Parker grinned at me and lightly kissed me. “Along with nearly always being right, you are nearly always a dick, Happy.”

“And yet you still want to date me.” I squeezed his hand and was grateful when he squeezed back. “I still want you to have a secured phone though. With the ability to to call whoever you want, but secured.”

“That’s fine.” We had arrived headquarters and got out of the car. 

“Why didn’t you ever have one?” We got in the elevator. Parker self-consciously pulled his hand from mine. I went to hold his hand back again. He looked at me for a minute, then seemed resolved to hold mine too.

“Cameras, Happy.”

“Still not having sex with you in the elevator. Still not taking it off the menu for later though.” His face lightened and he looked happier. I liked seeing him happy. “So why no secure phone?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. You would have been the one to give me one, you know. I’m guessing it’s because I Snapped out as a teenager and then everything was all over the place when I came back. I don’t work much with the other Avengers, you know.”

“Why not?” We got out of the elevator and started walking to the conference room. I let him drop my hand.

He looked at me. “I think that’s a conversation for later, actually. The short answer is that I like getting cats out of trees and stopping muggings, and I’m not sure that I’m great at handling international incidents. Or that I want to.”

I nodded. “Boss sure did have a lot of international incidents.” I held open the glass door for him. Pepper immediately swept Parker into a hug, and she didn’t let go. I could see him trying to fidget out. I grinned at him over his shoulder and moved to get a bagel before all the cinnamon crunch ones were taken.

“Peter, we were so worried!’

“I’m fine, Ms. Potts.” He sounded a bit breathless, and I decided to try to rescue him.

“He’s fine Pepper, let him go. Parker - you want your usual bagel?”

She swayed him back and forth for another minute and then let him go, but she held him at arm’s length. “Peter, why didn’t you tell me you and Happy were dating?”

He looked at me. I shrugged back at him and took a bite. It was delicious.

Parker glared at me for a moment then answered. “It’s still pretty new.”

I swear, she almost clapped her hands. “Oh, I’m so delighted for you both! You’ll have to come up to dinner soon. This Saturday?”

I went to say yes, when Parker interrupted. “Oh, we would totally love to, but my friend MJ and her girlfriend are flying back to England on Sunday. We’re going out to dinner. We’ll have to do a raincheck.”

I sat my plate down at my place and went to grab Parker his coffee. “We are?”

“Yeah.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “You just got finished telling me that you didn’t want to spend time with Christabel.”

“Yes, but I do want to spend time with MJ. I see her twice a year. Besides, Christabel apologized to Lauren and is taking and Ned on a tour of a lab today.”

“She didn’t apologize to me, Parker.”

“You were literally on the phone for 16 hours on Sunday. I don’t see how she could have, and we weren’t answering the phone yesterday.” He realized what he said and blushed a little. Pepper had the good grace to turn her head away from him as she smiled and winked at me. 

I, on the other hand, took pity on him and growled. “Fine. We better be going somewhere good. Pepper, the weekend after work for you?”

She just got finished telling us that that would be fine as the rest of the team came in. I spent a couple of minutes bull-shitting with Danny and a couple of the guys, while Peter talked to Pepper’s assistant about a play that both of them had seen. We broke up and went to our seats as the call came in from Wakanda. It was Shuri on the vid-screen.

“Good morning, Shuri!” Pepper trilled. “How are things with you?”

“The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and it’s a beautiful day in Wakanda.”

Pepper smiled back. “That’s wonderful!”

“Yes, yes, it is. But I’m sure that, instead of hearing about our weather, you all want to know why young Nyala decided to do what she did to your computers.”

I perked up. I never did like pre-meeting chatter, and I appreciated that Shuri was getting right to the business at hand. “You bet we do. Why did she do it?”

Shuri took a moment to breathe. It looked like she was trying to think about how to phrase what she was going to say. I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. 

Pepper spoke up. “Shuri? Why did she do it?”

I could tell that Shuri was choosing her words carefully. “Nyala’s brother… he was killed in a fight between two factions in a political dispute about a year ago.”

“Ok,” I said. “I’m very sorry for her family, but how does that have anything to do with the servers?”

Shuri took a breath. “It looks like her brother was killed by low-range ballistic from Stark Industries. One of the factions got hold of more fire-power than the others, and well, it killed Nyala’s brother and about twenty other people. Some civilians.” She shrugged.

I could see Pepper, next to me, gasp and grow pale. I nudged her knee with mine to try to keep her grounded. “What? SI hasn’t sold weapons in over a decade.”

Shuri smiled, a little sadly. “These were not the richest of fighters here, Ms. Potts. They weren’t using the newest weapons, but they were using weapons that worked. There’s a lot of old Stark weapons out here, in Africa. One of the factions just happened to have enough money to buy some from low-level weapons dealer.”

Pepper took a deep breath in and out, and then rushed out of the room to the small preparation room next door. I could hear sounds of retching. Her assistant hurried to the other room to help her. Parker looked tense next to me.

I turned back to Shuri on the screen. “So what’s going to happen to Nyala?”

She shrugged. “Look, she did a bad thing. She could have hurt Mr. Parker here.” She nodded at Parker. “We understand that, but… She is young. Fifteen. She is hurting.”

Parker leaned next to me, “I was fifteen when Tony found me.” I nodded at him.

“She was like a small spider. She thought she’d do a tiny little bite at the ankle. Cause a bit of pinch. She didn’t think about what she was doing really.”

Parker spoke up. “A spider bit me on the neck once. It did a lot of damage. I’m not the same.”

Shuri nodded, sadly. “We know, Spider-man. We know. But she is young, and she is skilled. We will teach her why she did wrong, and we will teach her to be better. She’s too young to be given up as a lost cause.”

Pepper slid back into the room and broke into what Shuri was saying. “Stark Industries will help get rid of the weapons.” I could see tears in her eyes.

Shuri sighed. “It will be a big job. Bigger than you realize.” She turned her head to speak to someone else then turned back to the screen. “We will do some research. We will figure out how big we think the problem is. We’ll have numbers and scale of the problem to you by the end of the week.”

She looked back at Parker. “Spider-man. When you are ready, Nyala will apologize. We have told her who you are and that you have no connection to what Stark Industries used to be. She understands and feels sorrow. We will not rush you to forgive her, but she was not attempting to aim her bite at you.”

Parker’s eyes were glistening too, dammit. He murmured polite words to Shuri, and then, as far as I can tell he shut down. He didn’t talk during the rest of the meeting, he didn’t talk on the way home, and he didn’t talk once we got to my apartment. He got inside and went immediately to the bedroom. He neatly took off his shoes and then laid down on his side facing away from the doorway, away from me.

I sighed. “Parker, are you ok?”

“No, not really.” His voice was calm.

I went over and peered down at him. “Will you be cold without the covers?”

He sort of shrugged at me. 

“I’ll take that as a yes. Come here, sweetheart. Let me pull the quilt on you.” He laid in a lump while I tugged everything over him.

“Thanks for the help, Parker. “ I sat down next to him and put an arm over his shoulder. “Are you upset about your suits?”

“No.”

“Are you upset about almost dying?”

He looked up at me, and then said, “No.”

“Are you upset about Tony, then?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, me too. You wanna talk about it?”

“No, not right now.”

“Are you going to process in bed?”

“Yes. I think so.”

“Am I in your way?”

“Yes. Sorry, Happy.”

I smiled gently down at him. “It’s ok. You process. I’ll be out somewhere in the apartment.” I kissed his forehead.

And then I did some email. I watched a movie. I had a snack. I texted with Vince about the snacks he should have at poker night this Friday.

I told him that I couldn’t be out too late, because “my ball & chain” might get upset. He expressed surprise and then congratulated me about “finally pulling the stick out of my ass and hooking up with Parker.” We then figured that was enough emotional talk and talked about baseball for twenty minutes.

I checked my email again. Took a shower in the guest bathroom, so as not to disturb Parker’s processing. Finished up a bit of outstanding paperwork. Decided to make dinner.

I was just finished heating up some leftover soup when Parker wandered out, looking like death.

I went over to him and kissed his forehead. “I made soup. Do you think you can eat?

He stood indecisively in the middle of the kitchen. “My head hurts.”

I nodded. “You haven’t eaten hardly anything today. You need food. If you give me a minute, I’ll make dinner rolls.”

He looked at me in surprise. “You bake?”

I patted his ass lightly. “Move out of the way of the fridge, baby. No, I take frozen rolls out of the freezer and bake them.’

“That makes sense.” He was still in the way.

“Parker, seriously. I’ll make you tasty bread if you go sit down somewhere and get out of where I need to work.”

He nodded and meandered over to the barstools at the counter. I smiled a little at him, and got him a glass of water. He was probably dehydrated too. “That’s where you first kissed me.”

He surprised himself by smiling at me and then immediately went back to his sad face. I dug out my cookie sheet and let him process more. “Drink your water.”

He sat in silence for a minute, while I grabbed my own water and snagged the stool next to him. “What are you thinking about, Parker?”

“How many people do you think Tony killed in his lifetime, Happy?”

“Personally or as an arms-dealer?”

He looked at me horrified, then settled down. “As an arms-dealer, I guess.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “SI was a government contractor, and they were willing to sell a lot to US allies too. He started as the president of the company in his twenties and did it until his mid-thirties? Somewhere along there. There’s always little brushfires going on around the world, little armed conflicts, and then there’s wars, and third-party deals, like what happened to Nyala. 

“So… thousands, maybe?”

He sat and stared at me, mutely.

“You know, Parker, you have the right to feel about that however you feel.” I stood up and went to the cabinets to get the soup-bowls and started setting the breakfast nook. We weren’t eating a big dinner.

He found his voice. “Doesn’t that bother you? Doesn’t that bother you AT ALL?”

I sighed and looked at him. “Honey, you met Tony during his good years. Sometimes, he’d have a little spell and fall off the wagon for a week or so, and I know it bothered you to see him drunk or not at his best, but, Parker, he was not at his best for like 25 years before that. 

“You and I joke about Tony doing eight-balls of coke, and it’s funny, it is. It’s funny for you because you never saw him when he was doing coke, like it was his full-time, all-the-time job so it’s a story to you, and it’s funny for me, because He. Got. Better. He whistled in the dark, and he got BETTER.”

“Lots of cocaine addicts don’t sell arms, Happy.”

I tilted my head back and forth for a minute. “Yeah, but you have to remember that Stark Industries, his dad’s company, not Tony’s, was a weapons contractor. Tony inherited that, and I don’t think, for awhile, he knew how to break out of that. Or was conscious enough to know that that’s what he should do. Like you could taken Tony and blew a layer of loose coke off him for YEARS. You know, Parker, lots of suicides don’t sell arms, either, Parker.”

He looked at me. “What do you mean?”

I took a minute and thought about it. “He was fun those years. He really was. I’ve done coke a couple of times, mostly with him --”

Parker looked at me in surprise.

I chuckled. “Don’t look at me like that. I did it like four times in the Eighties and I got a nosebleed two of those times. I could see the appeal, but I could also see that it wasn’t for me and my delicate nasal membranes. But Tony, though, Tony took to it, like it was a lover. And it made him happy and sparkly and fun. He could get women and men by snapping his fingers, and he was the center of every party.”

I pulled rolls out of the oven and slid a knife underneath them to loosen them from the pan. “Go sit. I’ll bring soup. Anyway, if you ever caught him when he was down though, off the coke, off the alcohol, he was the saddest thing. Just -- in a strange way, the cocaine kept him alive, enough to get over his sadness and his father and the legacy of what SI was, it kept him alive long enough to figure out what he was meant to be.”

I dished out some soup to Parker. He asked, “And what was that, exactly, Happy?”

I kicked at his foot a little. “You know that as well as I do. He was meant to be Iron Man, Tony Stark, instead of Anthony Stark, which is what he was went by when he was younger. He was my friend and your friend, and once he got over being an ass to her, a good husband to Pepper, and a good dad to Morgan.

“He loved you, Peter. You know that. I’m not talking about whatever weirdness,” I waved my hand vaguely, “but he loved you as a friend and a mentor too. He made a shit-ton of mistakes, but he was lucky enough to turn himself around, become better than anyone thought he could be when he was doing strippers and blow on a Tuesday afternoon.”

I was looking down at my roll, buttering it, so I was surprised when I heard a sob. I looked at Parker in surprise. “Then why did he die?” He sounded like a lost child.

“Oh, honey. Honey, don’t cry. You crying makes me sad too.” I grabbed his hand. He continued to sit there and sob.

I got up out of my chair and went over and kissed Parker in his hair, and hugged him to my chest and made shush-shush noises at him. “Come on, honey, let’s go sit on the sofa.” I tugged him over and got him settled with a blanket wrapped around him. I let him rest on my chest and let him cry himself out. I patted him on the back and talked nonsense to him, but it looked like he had needed to cry for a while, so I let him get down to it.

After about fifteen minutes he sat up and said, “My head hurts worse.”

I continued to rub circles into his back. “Yeah, dehydration will do that to you. You ok if I get up and get you water and some painkillers?”

He nodded and then grimaced. “The painkillers won’t do much for me. Sorry. Water’s good though.”

I went up and got his glass from the table. “So, it really was a spider bite that… changed you.”

He stared at me like I had two heads. “Yes, Happy. How the fuck else did you think I got actual spinaretts?”

“I didn’t really think about it when you were younger, and then I knew you, and I know you as Parker, not a mutant.”

He took a gulp of water. “Well, I guess that’s nice, in its own disturbing way, Happy. Yeah, I got bit on the neck by a spider that my dad had been experimenting on. Well, not that spider exactly, but sort of like the nest, you know?”

“Uh-huh. So that explains the dad issues, I can see that now.”

Unfortunately, I caught him with a mouthful of water and he choked. I slapped him on the back a couple of times. He caught his breath. “Yeah, yeah. It’d be swell if you didn’t experiment on insects with radioactivity, Happy.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed. “I’ll try not to.”

He tentatively smiled at me. “Anyway, just a heads-up, I know you think it’s weird, and it is, but you know how you get hot by thinking about me catching you jerking off?”

“Yeaahhhhh…” I said not sure where he was going.

“The spinaretts are super-sensitive. You could probably get me to come just by playing with them.” 

I took in this information and then went and sat down by him. “That is weird.”

He slid his eyes to look at me. I nudged his knee with mine. “Good thing I have a vested interest in making you come as often and as hard as possible, Parker.”

He nudged my knee back. “Same. We’ll totally do your fantasy some time.”

I nodded. “So what are you thinking about Tony?”

“Mostly that he was an asshole. Like a huge, giant fucking asshole. He made me love him and then he died.”

“He did that to a lot of people.”

“Yeah.” He sat for a moment. “He was a lot of fun, you know?”

“I do, sweetheart.”

“So why did he die?”

“He flew close to the sun, Parker.”

“What?”

“Like Icarus, you know. He always had to be the biggest and the best and solve all the world’s problems. Or cause them all, one of the two. Pepper and SI will get the arms off the streets, you know Parker. It’ll take some time and a lot of money, and the stock will take a hit for a year or three, but it’ll happen.”

“I know.”

“Don’t fly too close to the sun on me, Peter.” He glanced up at the use of his first name. 

I continued. “I care about you a lot. I’m really happy we’re dating. You make me happy, and I want to make you happy. I’m nicer to people when I’m around you, not because you make me be, but because I’m happier around you.”

I swallowed. “And I was so scared about you using your suit and you getting hurt because, well, I worry. I worry that you’re going to be like Tony, and think you have to be the biggest and the best and you’ll fly too close to the sun too.”

He leaned over and kissed me, deep and true. “Take your two weeks off, Happy, and I’ll stick to getting kittens out of branches. I’ll be fine, I promise. I can’t promise forever, but I can promise now, ok?”

I nodded. We went back to the table and ate our soup and talked about nothing and everything.

And he was good and kept his promises. I was the one that got poisoned.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I meant this to be a short story, and it turned into 171 pages. Good gravy! It's been swell, and I hope you had fun :-)

In a way, I probably called the poisoning to me, in particular, what with teasing Parker so much about the salad fork line. One minute, I’m at the dinner table with Parker and his friends, including the lovely Christabel, the next moment, I’m falling out of my chair, retching, then seizing. The chemical agent was on the goddamn salad fork, of all the ridiculous things.

I managed to keep conscious for a couple of minutes. Parker was frozen, with a look of terror on his eyes. I tried to reach out to him, but my arm wouldn’t work properly. Christabel was the one that managed to move first, actually. She was the one that tugged me into the rescue position, on my side, so I wouldn’t choke. She was the one who then pulled out her phone and called for emergency services. MJ dashed to the door to make sure the ambulance workers knew where to come.

Ned managed to move next, stripping off his coat and placing it on my midsection. I remember wondering why, but then I figured out that I must have pissed myself, which was just lovely. I choked and gagged again, and Parker finally fell to his knees with a wail, and started yelling at Ned, while stroking my hair. Lauren just stood stock-still with a look of horror on her face. 

“Poor girl,” I remembered thinking, as the world faded to black.

When I came to, I was sitting up, in a doctor’s office, wearing a hospital gown. Now, you may ask yourself, as I did, how did this retching, pissing man who just blacked out manage to sit up so quickly after becoming conscious? 

Then I saw Tony sitting in the chair across the way from the exam table I was sitting on. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He was sitting just like I remembered Tony sitting - legs crossed, arms crossed.

“So I’m dead now? Is that it?”

The bastard had the audacity to laugh at me and rock his hand in the sort-kinda gesture.

“Great, that’s great.”

“Oh, get over yourself, Happy. You’re dead NOW, but they’re getting ready to shock your heart. You’ll be ok. You’ll be in an induced coma for another week or so, while they figure out how to get all of the shit out of your system, but you’ll be fine in the long-run, and you get to spend time with ME!” He spread his hands in a ta-da gesture, and honestly, that was all pretty great. But Boss and I had always had a relationship where we gave each other crap.

“I was going to order lasagna. I really like lasagna. And now I’m stuck with you?”

“Hell, yes, you are. We’re going to have so much fun this week!”

I looked around the room. It blurred around the edges, going in and out of focus, but it was definitely an exam room. “Are we waiting for the doc?”

“Huh?” He looked around the room. “Are you seeing a doctor’s office? I’m seeing a coffee shop. Basically, your mind is going to create the reality that you see around you. What you expect to see is what you’re going to see. I mean, I’m as real to you as it’s going to get here, but your surroundings are built by you.”

“Well, that’s confusing.”

Tony shrugged. “Yeah, it is. Pretty much every person you see here is in their own vision of reality. So communication is not all that it could be. You get used to it. If the Snapped people were in anything like this, it’s really not surprising to me that they have a hard time talking about it.”

I nodded at him, while he continued. “I mean, think about it Happy, I’m a fucking genius, and I still can’t make heads or tails of time here. How long has it been since I died?”

“A fucking genius, huh? You’re just a wise-ass.” He grinned at me. “It’s been about three years, since you’ve been gone.”

“Really? I would have said six months.” He sat quietly for a minute, then spoke. “Morgan getting big?”

“Yeah. She is. Her mom says she outgrows clothes like crazy.” I saw his smile waver a little and decided to try to change the subject.

“So I’m really dead now, huh?”  
“Yeah, like I said, they’re getting ready to shock your heart. I think you’ll feel it.”

“They’re not really rushing to get to that, are they?”

“Time is strange here, Happy. You might feel the shock the next second, or it might feel like you’ve been here a year before you feel it. And you know, your heart didn’t really stop until you were at the hospital, so they had to get you to the ER, shave your chest…”

“They’re shaving my chest?”

He nodded solemnly. “Yep. They just cut away your white shirt, probably white shirt #45, and they’re working on shaving you. For the pads to connect to you for the shock.”

“I wear things other than white shirts, Tony.”

“Only for Peter. I never saw anything else.”

I coughed a little. “So you know about Parker and I?”

His smile turned wolfish. “Why do you think I wrote that you’d be at his wedding? It’s because you’ll be facing him, Happy. In a tuxedo. Getting married too. You’re also going to love his kid. Because it’ll be your kid too.”

“I think it’s a little early to start talking about marriage,” I said stiffly.

He waved a hand in the air. “It is not.”

“Just because time works differently for you--”

“Not THAT much differently, Happy, Jesus. Look, he told you about me trying to kiss him.”

“Yeah, about that, Tony, how old WAS he?”

 

“Mmm, probably too young, but old enough that I didn’t feel terrible about it. That was until I went for him --” He kind of paused.

“Uh-huh, keep going. Continue talking about you molesting my boyfriend.”

“Oh please. Age is just a number, Happy, I’m sure you’ll agree.” He stood up and leaned toward me. “He said something underneath his breath, and I didn’t quite hear him, so I replay it my head as I’m moving to kiss him --”

He paused again. 

“Tony, this is wonderful. Really, it’s a delight going on a trip down memory lane with you. What did he say? ‘Get the fuck away from away me, old man’?” I quirked an eyebrow at him.

“No, I wish! He said, ‘Happy.’ And at first I was like, ‘Well, this is working out well’ but then I looked at his face, and --”

“Parker was saying my name?” 

“Yeah, yeah, he was, Happy. He was thinking of you.”

I whooped in laughter, my chest filing with something like joy. “He did not!”

“He DID! It was not a great night.” He started laughing too, and then neither of us could stop laughing, and God, it was great to see him again. I had missed him so much.

The joy in my chest started to expand, to build into a bubble, and soon it was a bubble that was collapsing my ribs, tearing them apart, ripping me in two, and then lightning struck my heart, and the world shrunk to a tiny black pinpoint. I gasped for breath, for air, I was suffocating, I was dying again. My chest felt like it contained a star, a supernova and it was going to burn me from the inside out. Tony grabbed me by the shoulders, held me up.

“Yeah, this would be them getting your heart started. Breathe through it, I’ll see you on the flipside.”

Everything went to black.

************

When I came back, I was in a coffee-shop, sitting across from Tony again. He was wearing sunglasses, and a different suit. I looked around.

“So Boss, I’m in a coffee-shop. Where are you?”

“Same. It’s not to say it’s the exact same shop we’re both looking at. I’m in one that I used to go to in college. Yours look familiar?”

“It’s one that’s down the street from my apartment.” Tony nodded and took a sip of his coffee. 

“Yeah, your mind fed off of me saying coffee shop a while ago. It just picked the coffee shop that was on the top of your mind to feed the landscape. So don’t be too hard on Parker if things are hard for him to say. He basically had to deal with this shit for five years, at a younger age. It’s weird to have to deal with.”

I took a bite of a pastry that was suddenly sitting next to my elbow. “How long was I gone? After they shocked my heart?”

“You blipped out for a minute or two. Not a big deal.”

“So now I go straight to coma?”

“Yeah. Not for long, and it’s the doctors keeping you down. They’re watching you.”

“So is this what Heaven is? Coffee shops and doctor’s offices?”

Tony laughed, “I once spent what felt like a week here, trapped in a closet because Dum-E accidentally closed the door on me. If that’s heaven, I don’t think I want to see hell. No, I think it’s a waiting room, sort of letting you wrap things up, before you move on to whatever’s next. Lots of people seem to be working through things, processing things. Waiting for people.”

“Are you waiting, Boss?”

“Yeah, I’m waiting for Pepper. I got years to go though, she’ll have a nice long life. There will be a couple of years, many years away for you though, so stop worrying in advance, where you’ll be sitting here with me, waiting for Peter. This won’t be the last time we see each other.”

“That’s actually kind of nice.”

“You have to wait here longer than I do though. Since Pepper is age-appropriate for me, and you’re over there telling yourself that age is just a number, Happy.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “You told yourself first.”

He laughed and then spoke. “Anyway, back to you. You’ve been here long enough to ask the question that we all ask, and yet you haven’t.”

“What’s that?”

“Weeeeelll, most of us ask ourselves, ‘How did we get here? Did I get hit by a car? Did I have a bumble-bee stick me’--”

“Did I pick up a glove with all the Infinity Stones in it, blowing out my heart?”

“Yeah, like that, Happy. Except I died heroically and you died by picking up a salad fork.”

“What?”

“Yeah, there was a chemical agent on the salad fork. It wasn’t really meant to kill anyone, but, yeah, you had to go and have an allergic reaction to it.”

I looked at him. “Why was there a chemical agent on the fucking salad fork? Does this have to do with Peter’s suits?”

“Nope. Oddly enough, no. The two things are completely unrelated. I know, you’d think it’d tie neatly together, like in a story, but life can toss you two things at once. His suits really were just a teenage coder being angry at Stark Industries. That’s dealt with.” He tipped his coffee mug at me. “What you’re going to have to deal with now is the fact that Oscorp really did make a drug to kick people to here, without actually dying. Which is stupid, by the way. You might get to see some stuff in the future, but it’s all tossed in with what your own mind throws in. You can’t make sense of everything. It’s impossible.”

“Wait, Christabel poisoned me? Is that what you’re saying?”

He looked at me in surprise. “No. Christabel, the girl with the dreads?” He seemed to look into himself a bit, then spoke again. “No, she’s crying on the phone to her mom right now, saying she feels guilty, but she’s not really guilty, you know, Happy? She didn’t do anything, she just feels bad.”

“Wait, it’s not that girl? Who then?”

“Well, I assume it’s the girl whose nose Peter broke. Correct?”

“Peter broke someone’s nose? I feel like you’re burying the lede, Tony.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess so. Look, from what I can tell, and again timelines are really shaky here, you collapsed. You got taken to the hospital. Everyone else went to the hospital. Parker got a hold of May, who called Pepper, and Pepper went right on up the ranks to Fury. Like a big old game of telephone, except Pepper did manage to reach the angry one-eyed asshole.

“SHIELD came in, took everybody for questioning. Someone started crying and confessed. They brought Peter in and told him what happened, while she was still in the room. He flew at her in a rage. They let him go for a couple of minutes before they even tried to stop him.” 

He shook his head. “Fury can be a son of a bitch sometimes, but he does let you process emotions appropriately. Sometimes, emotional processing is done with your fists, you know? Peter pulled his strength all the way through, which you should be proud of him for, but he still made sure she felt it.”

“So it was MJ?” I said, wonderingly. “That’s going to break Parker’s heart. He loves her. Why did she do it?”

“No,” he said. “I know what MJ looks like too. It was the other girl. The kind of mousy one?”

“Lauren?” Now I was truly shocked. “Why?”

“Well, she wasn’t aiming at you. She wanted to have Christabel see that it wasn’t that easy for Oscorp to spy through the future. She dabbed the chemicals on the fork that Christabel was supposed to sit with.”

I remembered now that Lauren had tried to fuss me in another chair, but I wanted to sit across from Parker, so I politely ignored her. She had sat, pale and pinch-faced, but I thought it was because she didn’t want to be at dinner in the first place. 

“Lauren wants to be a preschool teacher, Tony. Not a scientist. How did she even GET anything?”

“Christabel, I think, was grouchy when you met her, because she and MJ had a fight on the plane, so she poked at MJ’s friends, because she was pissy. She’s weird-looking, yeah, and prickly, even when she’s happy, but Peter ends up being friends with her. She’s at your wedding, stinking of patchouli. She’s fine.”

“She works for Oscorp, Boss.”

“As an intern. She got an internship where she got an internship. It happened to be Oscorp, and the British branch at that. They mostly spend their time focusing on modifying crops to work better in a climate affected by change. Not the after-death stuff. That’s top-secret, and done at the American headquarters.

“Anyway, she felt bad about yelling, and MJ told her that she needed to make up for it. Christabel knew that Peter liked science, so she thought Lauren and Ned would too, even though Ned spent the whole time on his phone, and Lauren didn’t really know what she was looking at, until she was looking at it.

“Christabel never should have been able to get into that lab - the security coding was set up on her badge wrong - but she did it both to apologize to them, and to show off how far her intern badge got her, just a little. Oscorp is not a great company, but they’re not criminally reckless. Some security guard, somewhere, gave Christabel too high of access, because he was worried that his daughter missed curfew the night before.

“And while she was in there, Lauren recognized the name of the doctor who IS doing the research, put two and two together and pocketed something on the spur of the moment. It’s all just a bunch of little mistakes, feeding into one bigger mistake.”

“How the fuck did Lauren know about the after-death research that Oscorp was doing then?”

“She reads a lot. There’s corners on the web, places where people talk about being Snapped, and wanting to go back. The Oscorp researcher was mouthing off there. He will, a Dr. Anil, eventually be prosecuted for it. But that’s years down the road. Anyway, Lauren...She was mad at Peter, for not wanting to go back, not being excited about the drug that makes you feel like you’re here, and mad at Christabel for having access to drugs that she wanted --”

“Lauren wanted to go back?”

“Desperately, Happy. She hates being back. Once you get used to this kind of world, I can see how it would be hard to go back. It’s like a dream here - you drift where your thoughts take you. I could imagine myself on a tropical island with a Pepper, not THE Pepper, not the person I want to be with, but A Pepper, you know? If you don’t let yourself think too hard about it, you can have whatever you want, when you want it.

“You guys won Peter back because he loved you, he loved his aunt, and he loved his life. He feels useful and happy. Lauren feels lonely and lost.”

“She doesn’t love Ned?”

“She … does. But she still wants to be here. Anyway, she didn’t mean to hurt you or kill you. She just did it impulsively, like Peter’s Nyala. A little spider bite. It was meant to explain to Peter why she wants to go back. They talk about it a lot - Peter doesn’t understand why she wants to go back and she doesn’t understand why he wants to say. She wanted to remind him of what he’s missing. The way the researcher talked about it, she thought Christabel would be out for a minute, like a daydream, and come right back.

“But, you know, Happy, even if Peter had got sent here, not you and not Christabel, he would have spent the whole time trying to get back. He’s back. He’s happy. Don’t keep pressing about what he feels about the Snap. He’s left it behind.”

“He has?”

Tony nodded. “Yep.” 

At that point, my vision got blurry again and I sagged towards the table. Tony sighed, with irritation.

“Fucking time here, Happy. It felt like twenty minutes, right? Well, apparently it was a week. Jesus. I’ll see you when you come back for good. Tell Peter hi for me.”

I couldn’t catch my breath again, and it all faded to black.

*********

When I came to again, I was in a hospital bed with an IV in my arm, and an oxygen tube in my nose. This felt depressingly real. May was sitting in the corner of the room, looking out the window, wrapped in a sweater that was five sizes too big for her. 

My head hurt and my stomach hurt. I moaned a little. Her head swiveled toward me so fast that she must have made herself dizzy.

“Happy! You’re awake.”

I moaned a little more. Speech was more effort than I thought I could put into it right now. She rushed to the side of the bed and patted my arm.

“Shh, shh. Don’t worry about talking. They just took you off the drugs that kept you sleeping. You weren’t supposed to wake up for a couple of hours more. It’s how we managed to get Peter to go sleep. He wasn’t leaving you otherwise. I’m texting him now--”

*******

It was like my brain was jump-cutting in and out. I didn’t remember passing out on May, but the next time I opened my eyes, Parker was sitting with the chair pulled up close to my bed, stroking his thumb across the back of my hand. 

He looked like shit. If I was out for a week, he hadn’t showered once, I don’t think. His eyes were red and his nose was red, and he looked exhausted.

I tried my voice again, and this time it worked. “You... look terrible.”

He grinned at me. I managed to grin back, although I felt distant and floaty. “So do you, Happy. I’m glad you’re awake. I missed you.”

“Missed… you too.” It was hard to get the words out.

He put his forehead on my cheek. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”

“Going… to pass out, Parker.”

He chuckled. “Ok. I’ll be here when you wake back up.” The last thing I felt was him kissing my cheek.

*******

The next jump-cut brought me to waking up and turning my head to see Parker asleep on a recliner, curled under a blanket. I went to say something to try to wake him up, and a hand grabbed the bar next to my bed. 

I turned towards the hand to see that Vince was attached to it. “I swear to God, Happy, if you wake him up, I’ll pull that IV out of your arm and strangle you with it.”

I just looked at him, mutely. Vince also looked terrible. He had five-day stubble, black circles under his eyes, and a sweatshirt with a coffee stain on it.

He looked back at me. “Look, I’m glad you’re finally back with us, but you’ve been asleep for a week. You’re fine. Parker is living off the three C’s: coffee, candy bars, and crying. He hasn’t slept at all. Let him sleep.”

I nodded. “He ok?” My voice was raspy, but more under my control

Vince nodded. “He will be. He’s happy that you’re sometimes conscious. He hasn’t left your side. His aunt pulls him away every 12 hours or so for the coffee, but she has to work at it, and only she can do it. You picked a good one there.”

I didn’t know what quite what to say to that. “Where’s... Lauren?”

“Fuck, I don’t know. I’ve been sitting here with you too. Mercy’s been running the gym. Hell, when I get back, the guys will all be doing yoga.” 

I snickered, and then coughed. Parker stirred a little.

“Shut the fuck up, Happy.” He continued. “People in suits come and talk to Ms. Potts. She doesn’t seem unhappy about what’s going on. She just listens to them and then goes back to typing on her StarkPad.”

“Parker...hurt her?”

“Did he? No one seems to know a thing about that. His knuckles were wrapped for a day, but I think he fell to the ground trying to help you.”

“I … don’t think so… Vince.”

His eyes caught mine and held them. “He fell to the ground trying to help you. That’s what happened.”

That’s when the edges faded to black again. I was really getting tired of this.

*******

The next time I woke up, Parker was sitting alone in the room, drinking some water. Good. All that coffee was apparently drinking was going to dehydrate him.

“Hey.”

His eyes widened. “You’re awake again.” His voice sounded delighted.

I shook my head a little to clear it. “The last time I was awake, Vince was here and you were sleeping.”

“Yeah, that was a couple of hours ago. He left to get something to eat.” Parker came up to my side and kissed my forehead and petted my arm.

With my IV-less arm, I caught him around the waist and held him a little bit. He relaxed against me a little and curled his upper half of his body around my head. “I missed you, Happy.”

“I missed you too, sweetheart. How long have I been out?”

He pulled back and reached behind himself to pull the chair up close to the bed again. He grabbed my hand as he sat down. “About 8 days. It’s Sunday night, of the following week. They had to keep you asleep while they flushed things out of your system. This looks like a hospital, but you’re actually on the medical floor of Stark Tower. Pepper had you transferred once you were stabilized.”

“So the salad fork, huh? You were right to distrust that.”

Parker looked at me strangely. “Yeah, but how did you know that?”

“The afterlife is real, Parker, and Tony Stark always was big on infodumps.” 

“Wait -- you saw, Tony? Happy, you saw Tony?”

I nodded. “Ow. I shouldn’t do that. My head hurts.”

Parker squeezed my hand. “It’s the oxygen. Sorry, honey. I’ll call a nurse.”

He reached for the call button and pressed it. “So you saw Tony?”

“Yeah.” My throat hurt. “Can I have some water?”

“No, honey. I can give you a couple of teaspoons of ice though, ok?” He grabbed a cup. “The doctors want to make sure that you can keep stuff down.” I made a face at him.

He leaned up and kissed my forehead. “You haven’t eaten in a week. It’s a good idea.” He sat back and spooned a little bit of ice up and held it at my lips. “How is Tony?”

I caught his eye. “Same.”

“He hasn’t moved on? I would have thought he would have?”

“He’s waiting for Pepper, apparently.”

“Ah.” I had swallowed one spoon of ice. “We’ll wait for second, see if you’re ok.”

“How’s Lauren, Parker?”

I saw him grit his teeth. “Not that badly hurt. I broke her nose. Gave her a black eye. They had Bruce pull me back when I went for her throat.” 

Parker looked at me defiantly. “I’m not sorry about that.”

“I didn’t say you should be. Vince is treating it like some mafia caper, but I'm guessing no one in SHIELD cares. How’s Ned?"

“Not great.” He got up another spoon of ice. “I think the wedding is off.”  


I caught his spoon hand. “Put the ice down, Parker. You look like shit, come on and lay down with me.”

He looked scandalized. “This is a hospital bed!”

“Uh-huh, lay down with me. You might raise my heart rate a little, but right now, it could use the exercise.” I scooched over weakly. He looked me a little, like he was fighting himself, but then reason won out. He laid down beside me, and curled up gently next to me, trying as hard as he could to not lay on me.

I moved around a little bit and got closer to him. “I’m fine. If you hurt me, I’ll let you know, Peter. But it’s ok.”

“It’s weird to have you this awake.” He tentatively put his hand on my chest. I covered it with my hand.

“Don’t count on it for long, baby. You ok?”

He nodded. “I will be. You scared me.”

“I know. Doctors say I’ll be ok?”

“Yeah.” He kissed me on my cheek. “You should be able to get to go home in another week. You may have to do a little PT since you haven’t moved in awhile, but you’ll be ok.”

I lay with him for a moment, enjoying him. Then I tangled my fingers with his. “You want to know what Tony said?”

“Sure. What did he say?” His voice sounded dreamy. He was starting to relax by being around me, good.

“He said we were going to get married, love.”

Parker leaned his head up a little. “He shouldn’t have told you that.”

“Is it true?”

“Yeah, but the rules…”

“Oh, so there are rules? Huh. We’ll be talking about that too. Anyway, he’s never been about the rules, you know that. So we’re getting married?”

“You shouldn’t rush things, Happy. Things here, they go in order, you know? Otherwise, everything gets all jumbled.” He was smiling at me though.

“Jumbled, yeah. I can see that. When?”

He leaned towards me and kissed me sweetly. “A couple of years, more or less.”

“Baby? We’ll have a baby?”

“Yeah. Christabel will carry it for us, then she’ll FINALLY feel less guilty about this whole thing. Whatever. Her guilt means our kid.”

“Boy or girl?”

“Does it matter?”

I thought about it. “No, not really.”

“What happens about Lauren?

His voice was soft as he answered. “I don’t know. I never could stand to watch this part, the part where you were hurt. It was what my nightmare about, the first night. You getting hurt and me not being able to stop it. I just couldn’t tell when it happened, so I couldn’t stop it. And I never saw Lauren being the one doing it. SHIELD will do whatever they need to do, with her, you know.

“I’m taking a break from being a superhero, Happy. I need time.”

“You’re good at it, Peter.”

“There will be time later. I want to concentrate on you and school right now. I feel in over my head. I never saw Lauren coming.”

“To be fair, honey, I’m not sure she did either. It’s all been small things, leading to what should be small things, turning into bigger things.”

He kissed my forehead. “I know. See, you don’t have to fly to close to the sun to be dangerous. It can be both ways. I need time off.”

We snuggled for a little bit. I was starting to drift off as he spoke. “I’m not sure I’m going to back to school.”

That woke me up just enough. “What are you talking about? Yes, you are.”

“I don’t want to be away from you.”

I patted his arm, “Parker, I’ll rent an apartment in Boston. It’ll be fine.”

“Really?”

“Really. I want to spend time with you too.”

He grinned at me. I grinned back. I was going to get him a book of myths for his birthday. We both needed to brush up on our stories, I thought, as he kissed me. 

My future was rushing toward me.

The end


End file.
